JTHM : A Continuation
by LittleMaggie
Summary: Johnny has strange feelings, he hopes he's losing all touch with emotions. Yet, could it have something to do with Devi? And suddenly, he is faced with a choice - accept feelings, or kill Devi and be free! Ch.10! The Ending! It's OOC, but SO WHAT! BITE ME
1. Issue 1

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Warning: This chapter is long and filled with interruptions such as "meanwhiles" and "Happy Noddle Boy", just because I felt inspired. So bite me! *laughs insanely* Wait… where am I?…

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Chapter One

Part One: Tick-Tock

He watched the seconds hand as it slid slowly from one thin black dash to another. Thin little black squiggles against the snowy white background. Thin, pathetic, annoying squiggles that were struck repeatedly, once a minute, for eternity by a thin black little arm. Very similar to what he was doing at the moment, repeatedly slicing thin little marks across a writhing man's back, so very white compared to his black gloves.

" What the hell is your problem!" The man bawled. " Don't you respect other's opinions, you loser? Yeah, that's right - - you're a loser!"

Johnny wasn't very disturbed by the man's incessant whining. He had been away for three months from Squee and all the rest. Now that he had returned, Squee was packaged in the loony bin, Squee's house was a pile of rubble (some blamed alien destruction on it), Devi had found herself some new (and handsome) boyfriend, but what about him? He felt like he was stuck in a little bit of a void, where everything progressed around him, and he was swinging his arms, trying to keep the tide back, to level things around a bit.

He had almost allowed for the greedy hope that he'd be cured. Three months was a long time to be cured. But then again, cured of what? The mind was not something that was capable of being erased. It could be lost, it could even be removed by forceps (much to his personal delight), but it was not _just_ simply flushed free of all previous, diseased memories.

Perhaps it was Nail Bunny that had eventually talked him into it – to just try and leave, to try and figure out his place in the world. Of course, the moment he had left, he ended up just getting more screwed up than before. All along his little journey of wanderings and tracing roots where there were none, he ran across pricks and fuckheads and all sorts of lame losers. People he would never be able to avoid. Finally he blew a gasket and gave up his odd little obsession with figuring things out. Instead, he began to kill again. Oddly enough, he wasn't even incited by the Doughboys anymore.

" Oh, God no!" The man shrieked.

" Did you consider all this when you were saying it?" Johnny asked, his hand rummaging through the little crate by his feet for a nail.

" Saying what?"

" Oh, you act ignorant now." He hammered the first nail down. " But soon, soon you'll feel sorry and scream in pain how horribly apologetic you are." Johnny shook his head. " Well, no more, no more…"

" Damn it! I had my tooth pulled yesterday! Don't you dare stick that nail -- AHHHHHH!"

" Hold on." Johnny stood, cracked his knuckles, and then took out a power drill. He didn't want to mess his hands too much with this sort of filth.

" I swear I didn't mean to kick your car tire! And call you a fag!" The man screamed. " But my girl was there, I couldn't just miss out an opportunity to show her that I kick ass!"

" You'll have plenty of time in hell." Johnny mused. He turned the drill on and switched the little ticker on the side from **normal mode** to **extreme pain**. Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. I bet you've never made _anything_ this scream-worthy!

The drill roared close to the man's cheek, just skimming the skin a bit, touching the nail and sending a vibration through the man. The scream echoed down the street, but once you cross the corner it sounded more like a horny dog with a groin ache. So much for this author's attempt at sound effects magic, right?

Needless to say, the fun and games were over within a few minutes. Johnny went upstairs to watch television. There was a new show that featured all the incoherent madness of talk shows, lumped into some sort of grotesque beast, where in the end the audience picked who they hated most and stoned them to death. The most memorable episode was perhaps the one where they turned against a fellow audience member. Oh, the audacity of it all.

o-o-o

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The Adventures of Happy Noodle Boy

A Break from the Excitement

Happy Noodle Boy grinned joyfully and put down his crate, stepped on top of it, and looked around the park. The happy folks all around him were all enjoying picnics. Noodle Boy couldn't fathom why anyone would want to have a picnic on the roach-infested grounds of the park.

He looked around merrily and began his ramblings of nonsensical rage: " I'll tell you all what the results are! GO HAVE FUN! Run happily in your wart-infested own behinds of creamy cotton candy!"

Some passerby stopped and stared at him, blinked, then moved on.

" It is the age of the golden wang! Many miles away Simba was run over by a knuckle! Shudder in FEAR!!!!!!!!!!"

There is no response.

" Make love, not concrete! No! Not the periwinkle toe fuzz!"

The police lady, fat as ever, ran up and went ape on him. " Get off of there right now, you psychotic psycho!"

Happy Noodle Boy shook his head. " I spit at you! Oink!" Happy Noodle Boy continues: " The ape gave birth to the children! Oh, the joys and tribulations of the grumpy old man!"

He paces and gesticulates madly.

" I am a prophet! Pummel yourselves in the crotch with blunt objects!"

He threw his hands in the air, screaming: " Never confuse thy mustard with thy honey, you chocolate-twist ass bump! My stomach grumbles your name!"

Happy Noodle Boy then stamped his foot on the crate furiously.

" Create an anecdotal record for your nipple-sucking rash-prone infants! It is never too late to prove your insanity! Your own thought-constipated minds triple your needs for cheese-less doom!" At this, he trips and falls off the little crate. A fat man came up and shot him a couple of times in the head, which was always a healthy past-time for the criminally insane. Noodle Boy's Earth-altering, mind-numbing and truly amazing prophecies have ended for the day.

o-o-o

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Chapter 1, Part 2: Wally the Screamer

Johnny sat down in the darkest corner of the café, watching as the store worker filled the snow cone machine with red dye, flavoring, and ice, which came in little bags similar to bags of liquid they added to IV hangers. He trailed his eyes outside the window of the café and saw that an older couple, perhaps in their fifties, were approaching the store.

They stopped right outside the glass door and stared at Johnny, debating whether they should enter or leave promptly. The old woman was shaking her head, but the old man was nodding vigorously. " We ordered ice cream cake for our 30th anniversary, and I'm not going to let some dirty punk keep me from it!" The man barked.

" Oh, Wally." The woman sighed, entering after him. " Alright."

Johnny squirmed in his seat. He watched as the old couple came up to the counter. The man slapped his hand down on the counter a couple of times, shouting the entire order out. " We - - CAME HERE – you hear me, store kid? - - WE decided we wanted our ice cream cake. DAMN 30th ANNIVERSARY!"

This Wally fellow was so loud that his voice echoed throughout the entire store.

" THE CAKE - - GOT THIS? - - was supposed to be a SURPRISE for my wife, but YOU already called her at work to confirm the ORDER. SO YOU DAMN BETTER not screw this up, YOU HEAR ME?" Wally hollered. " A SURPRISE!"

Johnny stared at Wally, thinking: _Shut up, geezer, before you get a two-knife surprise up your ass._

The bumbling teen behind the counter squeaked a reply and then said into the store microphone: "Order number 454-231, pronto." The feedback from the microphone echoed throughout the room, piercing Johnny's eardrums.

Johnny has had enough. He jumped up and raced at the snow-cone machine. He poured himself a cone, then yanked the metal rectangles out (you know, the ones you press down to make the stuff come out!). They were pointed like fireplace prongs at the tip.

With little more than an evil glare of warning from Johnny, Wally the Screamer was now impaled right through the ass to the prong. All of Wally's little hemorrhoids were screaming.

Johnny stared at the old lady. " Surprising enough for ya?" And with a pretty gruesome set of jabs, the old lady was lunchmeat.

Johnny spun around on his heels and glared at the store worker.

The store worker grabbed the microphone. " Urgent! Clean up at Front Counter!… wait? What am I saying? HELP!"

Before the uttering for HELP was finished, the teen café worker's acne problem was solved – he no longer had a face. The teen hobbled around on his feet, blood spraying grossly everywhere. Johnny stared at the back of the café, where some poor innocent worker was carrying a big tray with the frozen cake. Johnny shook his head and chopped the man into some chunky raspberry jam and then shoved him into the freezer.

Johnny stood there, his knives dripping blood, his face lightly glazed with perspiration. He had to admit to himself – he did a pretty nice job today.

o-o-o

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Chapter One, Part 3: To Leave or not to Leave?

Devi woke up with a headache. A throbbing, painful, horribly unfair headache, which she hoped would be liquidated if she were to add an extra 3 hours to her sleep. Instead, she realized she needed an even more powerful coffee to keep her up. She used four teaspoons of black coffee and poured boiling water over it. It was strong enough to level a herd of yaks off their feet, but she liked it.

She sat at her kitchen table and stared at the newspaper. _Four Killed in Café. Gruesome Scene Traumatizes Hundreds of Toddlers as they Walked By the Café for their School Fieldtrip._

Devi flipped the newspaper over and stared at the back page, where the story continued. Security cameras have caught a twiggy, tall, black blur racing out of the café. So difficult to make out was the picture that cops dismissed the photo as any sort of evidence. Devi knew, though, somehow she knew, in the pit of her stomach.

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She groaned and stood up, gulping the rest of her coffee down in angry swigs. She was going to be brave today. She was going to walk to the store, and not just the corner shop, but a good three blocks away. She hesitated all week but finally she couldn't take it anymore. One person couldn't ruin her life. She had a good boyfriend now. He cared for her, like a good boyfriend should. Not once did he try to kill her. That was always a plus in a relationship.

Devi pulled on her black trenchcoat and shuddered slightly. Insanity was always an impending doom to her, and she had tried to ward it off by being as busy as possible. She avoided dating, she painted and squeezed Spooky doll and was at work all day. Perhaps that's why she was so susceptible to Ian, her new boyfriend. He had appeared, a cool, sophisticated man, dressed in black, right in front of her one day at the bookstore. Oh, how lovely it was that so far he had done nothing to disprove her theory that he was perhaps "the one". It gave her a chill to even think of it.

Devi had been through her own series of voices, including a creepy doll called Sickness, but her own strength and determination made her get over it. Thanks to Tenna, her one close friend, and the newly-acquired Ian, she was able to pretend Johnny was gone.

Yet now she saw this tell-tale reminder in the newspaper of Johnny. He was indeed still around, even though his neighbor's house was gone (the newspaper kept ringing Johnny's doorbell to ask but he was mysteriously gone). No further police interest followed. Yet, Devi was always paranoid that he'd return, and he had, and he was still a killer.

Even more disgusting, though, was that the police were just about the most annoying boobs under the sky. If they were to try to strike the ground with a rock, they'd probably miss. She couldn't fathom how Johnny could just slip between their fingers like water.

So much for wondering, though. Devi needed to buy some food, and she knew she couldn't rely on her friends to bail her out anymore. Without further ado, she left the little room of hers and went out into the hallway of the apartment. She silently wished herself mental abilities to morph necessary items into her house. However, no such luck.

o-o-o

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Chapter 1, Part 4: These Voices… I hear them…

Johnny was hearing voices again. Seeing things, too. Nail Bunny was an old favorite to see, and he remained there, but there was also Reverend Meat, the porky little white kid holding up a hamburger. He was no Mr. Fuck or Psycho-Doughboy, but it was still disturbing enough. The conversations he had inside were getting more and more in-depth too. He was feeling the same primitive urges as before, the ones that made him desire to be even with all the hypocrites out there. Not even hypocrites, but all the teasers and whiners and bullies, people who looked like people he hated, and of course, cheerleaders.

He, of course, had to be triggered into it. But it could even be a scowl nowadays. His failed little self-improvement issue hadn't exactly given him fruitful results. Now he was just angry at the world. It seemed like even the few things he thought of as people he knew, meager little flies buzzing in his ears as they were now, had progressed. Squee, perhaps, hadn't exactly achieved much in the forwards-moving sense, but he had also moved on. Devi was obviously very far moved-on. He remembered reading all about her new boyfriend in a little underground Goth magazine one of her friends ran. By choice was it that some drunk had thrown the magazine at Johnny just as he was entering town again.

He had made attempts to become "normal", or at least figure out what was wrong with him, if it were more than his own ideas of justification and world balance. Perhaps it was some weird neuron malfunctioning in him, or a lack of some enzyme, or maybe he just needed a bit of sleep. Johnny had signed up at Squee's mental hospital for a study which was to analyze his dream content. Johnny remembered reading somewhere that your dreams held keys to what you were feeling, thinking, or going through, things that normally you would never find within yourself. He thought that perhaps these scientists would have some explanation. Instead, he found that they analyzed all the wrong things – his brain activity, REM, sleep cycles, all sorts of physical nonsense. No mental analysis at all – they weren't even those sort of doctors.

Johnny kicked an empty Pringles can and it rolled across the room, scattering little flakes. The small white dots on the floor aggravated him, like the dandruff left behind on the head straps in the torture chamber. All this bodily waste, all these rejected layers of skin, tissue, liquids and solids…

His eyes hurt. He had stopped sleeping again after the doctors couldn't prove much to him. He almost felt sure he could rest for more than prolonged series of blinking, but now he didn't trust any longer. What he really wanted was to go the some store and get a cherry Fizz-Wiz. Just the idea made him feel a bit better – but not much.

Johnny pulled on an overcoat (nothing too bulky, it was still warm out) and left the house.

o-o-o

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Meanwhile…

At some little girl's home

(Further Misfortunes of Real People)

The lights were all off. The entire house was drenched in pitch-black. She could hear her breath rasping in her throat, just from the exertion it took to force herself out of bed. She had been ill – her skin color went from a rich olive to some sort of ghastly pansy-pale. Her hair had gone from a black sea of shine to a frizzle of dulled, matted waves. She looked seven years older than her meager ten years.

She had stayed inside for one reason only – a paranoid phobia of transportation. She refused to go in a car, airplane, train, bus, skateboard – in a nutshell, just about any mechanically propelled object. Her name was Mandy, and today she would attempt to conquer her fear.

Her parents had almost disowned her in desperation. Mandy's pastor had smacked her with a Bible and told her to repent. She had refused to see a doctor for it would have required transportation, and her insurance wouldn't allow house calls.

She decided that she'd go on the train. Cars were too dangerous, and airplanes unpredictable. She liked the odds for being safe on a train. She had to be chained to her seat, but finally the train started off. Ten minutes later, as it was nearing a stop, Mandy felt happy and cured.

Just then, a car skidded in the way of the train, and a plane fell on top of it. Horrible massacre followed.

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The Moral Of This Story: The author is typing in the dark, it is 2:43 AM, and the author's house reeks of gasoline. Too … much… inhaled…. Must… stop… and … breathe…

o-o-o

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Chapter 1, Part 5: An Encounter

Devi called Ian from a payphone just outside the apartment. Ian decided to accompany her just because he was a very boring, no-life person – just the type to keep Devi sure of him. Ian pulled up in his black Toyota and they rode off towards the store, which Devi hadn't visited for a while. There was a big Frosty machine visible through the store windows. Devi thought to herself that she could use a cold drink.

" Ian, here's my grocery list." She mumbled, pushing a wadded little paper into his hand. " I need to get a drink."

" 'Kay." Ian replied, looking down at the grocery list.

Devi wandered off to the Frosty machine and glanced over the flavors. There was Cheese Surprise (now with scraps from the Chinese food restaurant across the street!), Cherry, and Plain (just ice… so boring). Devi pushed a plastic cup against the metal bar beneath the Cherry label. Someone else's hand was there. Clad in eerie black gloves.

She took a step back. " Sorry - -" She began, then looked at the person the hand belonged to. Up the long thin arm, to the scraggly jagged shoulder, up the thin neck, and there was that familiar maliciously-grinning smile. 

" Johnny?" Devi stammered, yanking out her mace can. " Get away from me!"

Johnny blinked, unsure of what to say in these last few seconds before he gets an eyeful of agonizing, stinging fluid. " I…"

She released a fury of sprayed mace. It made her eyes grow watery and full of tears. She coughed and then shouted at the cloud of gray before her: " You are a bastard! You don't know how much I hate you now! I've decided not to let you traumatize me anymore, you fucker! So why don't just just go lie down in a ditch and die?"

The spray cleared and she saw that Johnny wasn't there. Suddenly, she had a freakish thought – was he even there at all?

She glanced around herself, and then her jaw dropped in horror at what she saw.

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Subliminal Message: Run to me children! … Run to me!

. . . . . . . . . . Actually, my subliminal message is, review. Sorry if it's OOC, I tried but I am not a very good writer. I really tried though. Most of the JTHM stories on here are really OOC … BTW! I only read all the Johnny's and all the Squee's and have only heard rumors of what I FEEL SICK is about… so if I got anything wrong with Devi, just pretend that I FEEL SICK didn't happen but my story did. ***Nods*** See? Isn't living in a pretend world fun?

If this story has thus far traumatized you in any way, nobody cares, you wussy. Why are you reading in this category anyway?

(Oh yeah… and if this story just disappears, it's probably because I realized this was just a very very weird thing I wrote in the middle of the night, and I should not, under no circumstance, have posted it. Or if people don't like it *sniff*)


	2. Issue 2

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Note: I don't own JtHM, Jhonen Vasquez does, and I am NOT him. I'm not even the same gender as him (whoa! I hope… must check in pants to be sure… yep! Am a girl!)

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Chapter 2

Part One: Kicking Someone's ASS!

Johnny had jumped up, using the cloud of mace as a distraction, and was now hanging from the ceiling like a terrifying mutant spider. He was holding himself up by jamming his two long knives into the ceiling. As he moved across the ceiling, he left a series of jabs and dents. He was now hanging right above her, an angry expression playing on his face.

__

Devi, the one that got away… I thought I knew her… he thought to himself. _I don't think giving her time made her forgive me._

Devi's face was red with rage. " Get out of here right now!" She shouted at him.

Ian turned and saw Devi screaming. " Devi, what's going on? You're shouting at the ceiling…?"

Devi spun around and shrieked: " Ian?! Can't you see him? Up there?" She pointed up at the ceiling.

Ian looked up. Johnny was gone.

Devi's heart pounded angrily and full of fear. _Oh God…_ she thought. _Ian probably thinks I'm insane now. What's happening to me? Is Johnny becoming some sort of freakish vision for me?_

Ian shook his head. " Come on, Devi. You're just tired."

Devi sighed and told him: " I don't know what's going on with me. I thought – I thought that psychotic manifestations of ex-boyfriends wouldn't haunt me any longer."

Ian patted her shoulder. " Don't worry about it. If that Johnny guy tries to even _touch_ you, call me."

" I don't think he's very into that whole touching scene." Devi replied. " He's all about some sort of mental connection. That's why it's so creepy. I just don't get his motives."

" He probably doesn't even have motives. I bet it all started after some sort of weird childhood trauma." Ian's chin trembled. " I've had so many of those." He turned away, looking very, very sad. The author of this story holds no sympathy for Ian though, and with an impeccable burst of wit, Ian suddenly has a gross little snot hanging out of his nose. Nobody tells him.

" Let's go home." Devi told him. " I need to get more mace." Her eyes narrowed into dark, blood-shot slits. " Much, _much_ more mace."

Meanwhile, at Johnny's house, a dark and thin shadow is cast across a kitchen table. A small plate is set down in front of a hunched figure. The plate is empty except for a red-stained Popsicle stick. Johnny lifted the little wooden stick up and twisted it around. He had resorted to eating some old, freezer-burned ice cream for dinner. He could have had Fizz-Wiz, or a Frosty, or some other delicious (and fresh!) treat. Instead, he was tired, lonely, and filled with measly flashbacks.

He could remember how happy he had been on his date with Devi. It seemed like a very long time ago, even though it was really within the past year. It felt like an echo from a totally different life, though. Before he had died, before he had gone through so many various changes. Now he looked down at his thin, pointed fingers and thought hard.

__

Am I a slave to my own emotions? Do my primitive feelings own me? Love, hate, sadness, joy, such trifle words, but they describe things that can make or break a person. Do they make me or break me, though? Johnny snapped the Popsicle stick in half in frustration. _I have no feelings left for Devi. She could move on for all I care._

He glanced out the window of the kitchen and saw the remnants of a sunset. The scattered clouds were gorgeous and a vivid red against the blazing emblem of the sun. _Such beauty out there, does it deserve to be graced upon this stretch of land?_ He thought. _With all the hypocrites and assholes out here, you'd think that there'd be some sort of veil to keep the heavens from witnessing it._

Johnny stood, the chair scraping the floor. In the basement he heard stirring. He had spent a while burying the corpses in his yard – quite a wholesome activity, really, and good for the biceps! – but now, now he had found new bodies to litter his lawn with.

__

If only I could have the shell of an insect, he figured, _then it would be easier to reject feelings._

o-o-o

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Meanwhile…

A Visit From the Author!

Be happy, Reader! I command it!

I, the author, am sitting, very tired, in front of a computer. I have a very nice, high-tech curvy sort of keyboard. My friend says there is a fancy name for these keyboards, but I just call it my split-in-half sci-fi keyboard. As I write, the E key often gets stuck. (EEE! So annoying!) Today is no exception. I scream in frustration, then rip the key off and stare at the little button beneath.

Dare I press it?

Fuck, no time to debate. I press it.

Immediately, the wall reverses itself and I find myself sitting in some freakish science lab. There is a duo of scientists inspecting something in a jar. The two scientists speak amongst themselves just loudly enough for me to hear them.

" I'm telling you, Carl, the rash is just a normal side-effect from…" The scientist spins around on his heels and faces me. " Oh! Hello! You have finally arrived!"

" Finally?" I mutter. " Was I on appointment or something?"

They seem to miss my joke. As the scientist turns to the one called Carl, I draw him an extra bodily sphincter in the middle of his back. _Just wait until that starts itching for him in the middle of the night,_ I giggle to myself. I need coffee.

Carl says: " Listen, Greg, we need to explain everything to our test subject."

I suppose I am their test subject, for suddenly, they are both staring at me. I check my ears to see if perhaps something horribly wrong had sprouted out of them. There is nothing there.

" We have been performing an unusual test to see what the effects of small doses of computer radiation are." Greg says. Greg is really ugly, I must note. I have to bite my tongue not to laugh at his nose, which seems to be horribly off center. It looks like a tumor growing out of his cheek. My eyes hurt right now, I am shutting them to see if perhaps, by magic, this story completes itself on my own. I have reopened them, but the scientists are still standing, motionless, over me, waiting.

Carl is mixing something in some test tubes. He looks very intrigued. " Most people do not realize that computers read your mind. Microsoft Word is an evil demon that turns off the moment you finish writing a brilliant story."

" So true." I whisper, horrified.

Greg sniffs the air, looking worried. Carl ignores him.

" There is also the Internet, which shuts down sites randomly when _you_ need them most." Carl continues.

Greg is sniffing the air. He lifts his arm and sniffles his armpit.

I am in need for adding gore and violence to this story. My fingers tremble. I wish to bang the "E" key in frustration. Then I recollect that my fingers are going 124 words a minute and banging any finger out of tune will probably split it in half.

" The virus scan only _pretends _to scan all your files. Secretly, it is duplicating them all and sending them to the government." Carl whispers frantically. " They're out to get us!" He grabs his head, shrieking.

I pull out my cattle prod. I had always thought it would be useful to carry one around, what with the crowds in the mall over the weekends. Especially all the annoying ditzy girls that just stand there talking, and I have to use my karate chop action to get into the comic book store. It is my home away from home. The store clerk knows me by name but prefers to call me Sparky. That is a very different, and possibly emotionally scarring, story.

Greg sniffs the air again. He is now sniffing Carl's neck. " Jeez, Carl, you reek." Greg informs, like the good friend he is.

Carl spins around to him. " What do you mean?" Carl then sniffles the air. " That's not _me_! It smells like some strange bodily fluid!"

They turn at me. I tend to be able to control the release of my bodily fluids. I say, very calmly and rationally: " Look down."

There is a very stinky puddle of shit (and some unidentifiable stuff too) around Carl's legs. Carl turns very red and lifts up his shirt. There is no sign of leakage on his white lab pants. " See? It's not me though!"

I shake my head and jab him with my cattle prod. His special little orifice – which I had added onto his back – squirts blood and shit all over the place. I find this very funny. I am glad he is facing me with his front, and his back is facing Greg. Greg's eyes are being pummeled by an onslaught of bodily fluids. He is shrieking.

Greg screams out: " I will never reveal the secret code, then! NEVER!"

I shrug. If indeed all computers are the spawn of Satan, I would prefer to not know. After all, about half my life has revolved around a screen of some sort.

Just then, I find myself lying on the front steps of my house in my very embarrassing pajamas. Someone has covered my face with a newspaper, thinking I was dead. I curse the considerate person to hell as I stand up, my hands shaking. I realize I had been hallucinating, but for some reason, I am oddly aroused by this all.

****

Moral: Coffee-deprivation is a very bad thing. Enjoying the smell of gasoline is another, more disturbing thing.

o-o-o

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Chapter 2, Part 2: A Hair Affair

Johnny no longer had to kill out of necessity. He had previously killed to contain the beast in the wall. Now that the beast had destroyed it's own existence by tearing the wall down, he had nothing left in his house to fear but himself. So, rationally, he killed for himself. It was some sort of guilty instinct he had begun to possess since high-school days.

His hair was a mess, he noted. He rarely paid much duty to his own physical well-being, but now he realized that the last time he used a hair product of any sort, it was when he poured PepperAction H all over his head in Squee's bathroom. Then he lost all his hair after returning from hell, and afterwards it had grown back somewhat darkly. It was no longer shaved off and left as a mass of spikes at the top. It was more of a full-headed layer of spikes, which was much more easy to manage.

He realized he needed to cut his hair. Yet, he had clogged his electronic razor with intestinal flesh, and his razors were all dulled from being impaled repeatedly into human bones. He didn't have the money to buy himself new hair products. He realized he'd have to go to a barber.

Johnny couldn't remember when he had last had a professional inspect his hair. Johnny did rinse it out occasionally to make sure no other human's body parts were in there, but other than that, it was probably laden with all sorts of problems. A barber was almost as cold as a doctor, simply pinpointing your problems, like a knife making a straight cut: " You have dandruff, you bastard! Holy shit, and look at all these lice! And is that – God, no! – that is clearly a piece of someone else's skull! And what's with all the shrapnel bits?"

He thought of this as he walked towards the Barber. He stopped in front of the window display. There was a sign in the window: **Now Specializing In Punk and Goth Haircuts_._** Johnny's own dislike of being lumped into a box – a _label_, so to speak – was lessened when he saw that there was a haircut you could get that was just like his original one.

He pushed open the door. The bells jingled happily, but he was startled by it. He yanked out his knife and he spun around, staring at the door in a wide-eyed paranoia.

" Mommy! The man has a knife! He'll kill me!" A little girl cried out.

" See? That's what you get for watching Pokemon." The mother scolded. "You're seeing things." The mother was deeply engrossed in the new issue of _Madame _magazine. The cover read: **Top Ten Ways to Cover Bite Marks On Your Face. _Menopause and You (Special Pop-up Book insert). _Three Effective Ways to Potty Train Your Husband.**

Johnny walked up to the desk.

The girl that was on duty at the desk looked up at him, blowing an angry pink bubble with her bubble gum. It popped, sending Johnny into jitters again.

" Y' want a haircut, a haircut and a wash, or a haircut, wash, and style?" The girl asked.

" Uh…" Johnny thought hard. " I guess a cut and wash."

" Twenty Four dollars." The girl replied, plopping a big fat yellow piece of paper down in front of him. Her sloppy, cutesy handwriting told clearly that a haircut was no simple affair – it would cost, and a lot. (The author wonders, _why can't he just put a bowl over his head and snip off all visible hair? Its' a great way to look like a social outcast!_)

" Shouldn't I pay _after_ it's cut?" Johnny asked.

" What are ya, the fuckin' President or sumthin'? No pay, no service." The girl lowered her eyes at him. " Get yer ass out of my face. There's more people in line."

Johnny gave her a silent middle finger from within the pocket of his coat as he sat down on the sofa beside the girl. He pulled out his wallet and thumbed out the money. Luckily, he always collected victim's money from their pockets, took a small percentage fee, and then left the rest in the victim's family's mailbox. He wasn't a stealer.

" Mister?" The girl whispered.

Johnny turned and gave her a toothy grin. " You know how they cut hair, right?"

The girl's eyes widened. She shook her head.

" For the little kids – like you – they have an alligator in the yard. They just put your head in it's mouth, or sometimes through the _other_ way, and then whatever's left of your scalp is your new look." Johnny whispered.

The girl gasped and buried her face in her mother's sleeve, weeping.

The girl's mother didn't even look up. She was reading an article called _How to Pay Attention to Your Child – Forty Signs That You Should Stop Reading and Help!_

Johnny stood, put the money on the counter, and then sat down again. It would be a long wait. He took out a sheet of paper and began to draw a Happy Noodle Boy comic.

o-o-o

****

Chapter 2, Part 3: A Surprise

Devi walked down the street, heading home from her grueling day at the bookshop. She hated having to walk all the way to work and all the way back again, but her car was currently in repair. She felt the can of mace through the pocket of her jacket. She hoped it was enough to ward off a surprise attack from Johnny. She didn't know what he wanted from her anymore. She couldn't comprehend why he couldn't understand just how much she couldn't stand him. She didn't want to see him – EVER again. She wanted to reserve whatever remaining good memories of him she had, and not replace them with new, more traumatizing ones.

She was walking by the hair salon now. It had been a while since she had been in here… Tenna had once worked here… she stopped and looked inside. Her heart froze. Johnny, right there.

_Sweet angry baby Jeezus, I'm seeing things again_, she thought frantically. She tore her eyes away and shut them, shivering in fear. _Why is his image following me? What the fuck is wrong with me? Have I honestly lost all touch with reality? I just **knew** I should have aired my apartment out from all that acrylic paint smell before I got brain damage!_

When she opened her eyes again, he was still there. He looked up from whatever it was he was doodling on a piece of paper and waved to her.

_Heh. Well, if it's just a freaky illusion, I won't let it worry me. If I don't let it annoy me, it'll go away, right_? She thought to herself. She waved back to Johnny, smirking. _Hah! Take that, psychotic hologram!_

His eyes widened and he gave her a gigantic, very frightening grin. It was almost all too real. She didn't let it bring her down though. She could remember how, in her childhood nightmarish dreams, all she'd have to do is stop and wave to the monsters to make them go away. If she would acknowledge them as fake, and show she didn't care, they would disperse. She gave Johnny a huge grin back. Then, she walked on, shaking her head.

_You're losing it, Devi,_ she thought bitterly. _I bet all the store people are wondering why you were waving at the wall…_

o-o-o

****

Chapter 2, Part 4: What the Fuck?

_She isn't mad?_ Johnny thought suddenly. _Or maybe she didn't recognize me… but you'd think she'd remember me from yesterday, right?_ His mouth dropped open in surprise. _Oh my God, I broke her brain!_

" Mr. C, your turn." The snotty desk girl was saying. She blew a bubble gum bubble and added, meanly: " What're you, on drugs? You're scaring the old lady over there."

Johnny glanced at the old lady. She shivered in fear and shrunk away from his glance, as if he were some sort of demon. He turned angrily at the girl. " Why do you talk to me like that? Would you talk to _her_ like that?" Johnny motioned carelessly towards the old lady.

" Oh, shut up." The girl rolled her eyes.

Johnny glanced at the shiny nameplate on the girl's breasts. It said, in bold print, _Mimi._ Mimi frowned in anger. " Stop staring at my tits, you asshole."

" Asshole?" Johnny hissed. " _I'm _an asshole?"

" Shh!" The woman with the child shrieked. " How dare you use such language in front of my child?"

The little girl whimpered. " Mommy, your voice hurts my ears."

" Shut up, you little fuck." The woman replied to her child, then said to Johnny: " You have some explaining to do, young man!"

Johnny's brain reeled. Devi had waved to him, smiled at him, with what had to be some sort of unusual female flirting gesture. Then all of a sudden, here he was standing in the center of a hair salon, assholes abound, and he was just taking the ass whipping from them.

His eyes narrowed into slits. Devi couldn't do this to him. It was far too late to turn back, to allow himself to feel some sort of affection for her. She was probably crawling back to him, or maybe she was joking around, trying to make _him_ crawl back to _her_. Whatever it was, it was just an evil ploy. He didn't need anyone, no friends, no girl to hold him back. Besides, happiness was so fleeting when it came to love.

Johnny lifted the little girl and scooted her into the closet, just because he had always felt some affiliation towards children of Squee's age. Then, he spun around, yanking a very sharp hatchet out from his pants pocket. He spun it around on his fingers.

" Oh, mi Gawwwwwwd!" Mimi gasped. " You are _so_ not going to do what I think you're going to do, right?"

" You talk so much!" Johnny exploded. " Why don't I just…" He grunted with exertion as he slammed the hatchet into her cheek. "… rip you a new mouth?"

Red blood gushed out, creating some artificial cherry red lip-like ring around the hole in Mimi's cheek. Johnny laughed viciously. " Red lipstick is _not_ your color." He whacked again. _Wham!_ " I bet it's so hard to live with yourself, if your lipstick doesn't match the lace on your socks."

" It… doesn't?" Mimi gasped, looking down.

"Let… me… take … care… of…" _Whack, whack, whack…_ "… that." Suddenly, her legs were shards, and her socks, lace and all, were crimson.

Johnny spun around at the child's mother. " You're no mother, _you fuck_." He mimicked.

" Get away from me!" The mother shielded her face.

" _It's a story, of a pervert…"_ Johnny sang along the Brady Bunch theme song, possibly the worst song in the universe. "…_who was about to raise a little asshole of her own… and all the time you thought, she was breast feeding… she was having in-cest!"_ The hatchet propelled itself through the air. Johnny shouted, laughing joyfully: " I bet you thought you were such a great mother, right?"

" Ahhh!" The woman cried, the hatchet splitting her in half.

" Your child will thank me some day." Johnny whispered. He turned around and faced the old lady. The old lady seemed to have fallen into a diabetic coma though. He raised his hands, ready to whack her one, then suddenly felt a wave of guilt and sadness.

__

Why am I not truly happy? Johnny thought. _I should have a huge smile on my face by now._

He turned and examined himself in the mirror hanging on the wall. He had an artificial smile plastered on. _What's wrong with me?_ Suddenly, Johnny felt he understood. _Ah, yes… slowly, all human emotions are being erased from me. This is not guilt… this is an insect-like perversion that is creeping through me. Soon I will feel nothing at all…_

At least, so he hoped. He hoped against hope that his feelings had nothing to do with Devi.

****

Author Sez: Did you notice any typos? If so, too bad! Just white them out on your computer screen and draw the rightful letter/word in with marker, you tight ass! I refuse to have any Beta Reader! I'm independent! I need nobody!

Whoa… serious coffee hangover…

Review or I'll die!!!!!!!!


	3. Issue 3

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To those of us who are less Mentally able than the rest: I am not the creator of these characters. I just find them wildly amusing to torture and fill with strange feelings.

****

Whoa! Half of this chapter was actually written when in the daytime! Unlike most of my previous stories/chapters/whatever! Behold the product of semi-coherent thinking!

****

Chapter Three, Part 1: I am NOT Crazy!

Devi paced her room, waving her hands in the air dangerously. " I am not going crazy, Ian!" She shrieked into the phone she was holding. " I know I keep seeing him, and I know I saw him in that hair salon right before that … that _massacre_."

" Look, Devi." Ian replied. " It's natural to project your own discomforts at something that really annoys you. In your case, Johnny… we are all shocked by the events at the hair salon, but we cannot let it bring us down."

" I couldn't _care_ less about the events." She said. " It's Johnny – that's what I care about – the fact that I'm _seeing_ him. And the fact that he's killing all these people!"

" Devi, I seriously doubt he's still around. Didn't the cops say that he wasn't home when they tried to investigate the whole neighbor's-house-burned-down bit?" Ian asked. " It just sounds to me like you're very upset about small things, and you like to blame them on things that are very human to you, instead of feeling that they could have just been fate."

" Sometimes I just_ hate_ you and your stupid Psychology major!" Devi slammed the phone down, seething. She turned and glared at Tenna, who had just entered the room.

" What's going on?" Tenna asked.

" NOTHING! I am just going absolutely insane! Maybe I should just shave my head bald and blow half the world away and get it over with!" Devi shouted.

" Whoa." Tenna blinked in surprise. " You should sit down, okay? Here." She handed Devi a cup of coffee. " Just relax and talk to me, girl."

" I hate Johnny!" Devi spat. " He's ruining_ everything _for me, all over again!"

" Maybe there's a reason why he keeps bouncing back to you like this." Tenna pointed out.

Devi shook her head. " I seriously hope not. If I have to see _him_ for the rest of my life, I swear, I…" Devi's hands shook and she took a long luxurious sip of coffee. Immediately her insides melted into a much calmer state. The author also likes coffee, and is drinking it right now. Revel in the author's happiness. Revel, damn you!

o-o-o

****

Meanwhile…

o-o-o

Meet Arnold, age 34. He is a very calm, rational man. But sometimes, things go a bit wrong in his world…

Arnold woke up, blinking. He ran to the bathroom, yanked his pants down, and then kicked the door shut with his leg. His wife, Maude, watched from the bed in a fond silence.

" Oh, my GOD!" Arnold screamed suddenly. " Honey, did we have corn yesterday?"

Maude blinked. " Uh…"

" Shit! Those are teeth! There's teeth in my crap!" Arnold shrieked.

" Are you sure?" Maude whispered, frightened. She pulled the covers over her head in fear. " This is all because of those burritos you choose to eat!"

Arnold gasped. " Holy fuck-a-mole! I think my shit's spawning with the water! It's… aHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!"

Maude jumped from her bed and ran into the bathroom. She saw Arnold on his knees, his head shoved into the toilet bowl.

" Oh my God!" Maude grabbed him and pulled him back. " Are you okay?"

Arnold looked up. The toilet bowl was empty. He laughed, toilet bowl water dripping down his face, and said: "Made you look!"

**Um… So how was YOUR week?**

o-o-o

****

Chapter 3, Part 2: Crossroads

Johnny glanced wearily around her room. He could feel the very impulse of thoughts that rocked through him, the anger was a warm, tingling feeling, while the pain and sadness was more of a rocking, shivering sort of feeling, a quiver in his stomach. He had never received such a terrific mixed message as the one he got from Devi. He was trying to figure out whether she was possibly insane now, or if she had forgiven him, or if his reappearance has woken up some primitive, vapid attraction towards him. He hoped that she was just insane, because he didn't need this extra distraction.

Reverend Meat smirked at him from the shelf he sat on. " A slave to your emotions, aren't you?" The psychotic little boy asked.

Johnny shrank away from his sight. " Why are there still voices?" He whispered to himself. " The wall's gone. There's nothing to control me but… _me_."

" Oh, isn't that just precious?" Reverend Meat sneered. " You know why you created me though. I'm the part of your mind that wants you to enjoy the chains of emotions. To feel the caress of love, the tightened grasp of hate."

" But…" He blinked uncertainly. " I don't _want _you to be here."

" Ah, yes." Reverend Meat shook his head. " So corrupt you felt, so in need to put yourself back together. Yet you missed the most important part of all – your mind. You could never piece together the different areas of fragmentation in your mind. They are but shards, jostling one another. You can never free yourself from it, your clashing thoughts would rip you apart. It is much easier to assign your different sides to inanimate objects and to argue with them. May the strongest one win, so to speak."

" I despise you." Johnny replied. " I don't need you."

" You need me." Reverend Meat grinned. " I am your true contact with the world. Remember when I told you that you are always a slave to something? Well, you are a slave to a feeling inside. It's holding you back."

" You lie." Johnny spat.

" Ah, you will soon learn what it is that grinds against you inside. You will never be able to fool yourself into being truly inept of emotion. For you have a very simple yet strong feeling embedded in you." Reverend Meat said, the conniver he was.

" Damn it, that's not true!"

" IT IS!" Reverend Meat shouted. " You resist it because you know it's there!"

Johnny shivered. " Then I'll destroy it. Tell me how to destroy it!"

" Kill Devi. Kill the one who you cannot forget. She holds you back mercilessly."

" What?" Johnny's face blanched.

" Her fingers have twisted deep inside of you. You tried to get away from her, didn't you? You had almost hoped she'd move on, find someone else, be happy. And she has. But you aren't satisfied. When you came back, you were furious. You began to kill again." Reverend Meat grinned meanly.

" No!" Johnny shouted. " I started killing again because I… I needed to."

" You aren't a waste lock any longer. You can off yourself and die forever."

" I don't know if I believe that." Johnny said. " I don't know _what_ I believe."

" You don't need to kill. You desire to kill." Reverend Meat grinned. " You like it. You don't do it for the reasons a spider slaughters its flies mercilessly. You don't do it like a cockroach that devours its ant prey. You do it because it gives you a momentary euphoria, a release from your own pain."

Johnny shook his head silently.

" But it hurts now, doesn't it? It doesn't give you the soothing it once had. So now you feel like killing more would fix it. Just like a drug. You grow tolerant, so you take a higher dose, and a higher dose." Reverend Meat chuckled. " You do know that, after losing the flusher status, you're open meat to the police? They can find you. You will keep killing, and then they'll find you."

" No!" Johnny shouted.

" But you know why you felt guilty after your latest kill?" Reverend Meat laughed menacingly. "Your feelings. The very things you wish to destroy are actually going to destroy you."

" There are no feelings!" Johnny spat. " You're lying to me. You're being like the Doughboys. You want me to believe you, you want me to become some mindless drone of society, to succumb to what _they_ all want…" He motioned out the window. " They want people like me to lie low, to become geeks. But I will not sit back and let assholes torture us into the pits of our own gloom!"

The author trembles at the onslaught of poetic speech and goes to make coffee, returning after two hours of night time TV.

By now Johnny was pacing the room and waving his hands madly, his eyes wide. " I am not going to become another lost, briefcase-toting loser, sipping coffee in the dark corners of Moonbuck's and scratching my ass on the morning train! I don't care for the satisfaction of having assholes working below me, or cleaning my car, as is promised to all us smart ones. I don't care for it! I care for revenge! You think they still don't laugh at us as they polish the spokes of our Mercedes-Benz?"

Reverend Meat shook his head. " You disillusion yourself. You make people jeer you more by being a psychopath. Later on they will find you and lock you away like an animal in a zoo. People will visit you, reporters will want to speak with you. You'll be a spectacle to a world of assholes."

" NO!" Johnny shouted.

Reverend Meat smiled. " You have two choices, a very difficult crossroad. You must choose."

" Tell me my choices." Johnny said.

" You can kill the one who has wormed into you, the one who makes you yearn for human things like arousal and friendship. Devi is what makes you feel the guilt. She was the only human you truly bonded with, you truly had contact with, other than the little boy. It is senseless to deny the existence of your feelings for her."

Johnny shook his head. " So I have to kill her?"

" Or…" Reverend Meat grinned maniacally. " You must subdue yourself."

" Never."

" You have to allow yourself to accept your feelings. No longer combat your feelings for Devi. You must learn to accept that you are not a born killer. You have been forced into it, squeezed into a mold, because of assholes. Don't you see that, in a sense, the thing you are doing is something assholes force you to do? Do you wish to spend your life carrying out the wish of the assholes? For, technically, they were the ones who forced you to murdering them. They are the ones who ask for it. Do you want to be a machine, a drone to them? Or do you want to be a solitary man? Separate yourself from society? Enjoy quiet nights in front of a fireplace with, dare I say, Devi, discussing art and movies?"

Johnny shook his head. " Either way I feel like I'm succumbing to assholes." He looked up, his face dark with fury. " No, I would much rather feel no guilt. I don't need emotions. I have though about it for a long time. Consequences be what they may, I don't want to live my life on a what-if principle. What if I get caught? What if I slip up? I don't care! Then it was meant to be! But I want my sweet revenge now." Johnny hissed hotly.

" So you choose the way of murder." Reverend Meat said sadly. " You are willing to kill the only one you are capable of loving."

" If that's the only way…" Johnny's eyes narrowed. " So be it."

o-o-o

****

Happy Noodle Boy

o-o-o

Noodle Boy was kneeling on the floor in front of the Senate. " Do not kill the Turkey King of the sporks!" Noodle Boy shrieked at a Senator that was happening to walk by. " Feed my eyeballs with the mucus that drips from your toadish hair!"

The Senator balked and ran away.

Happy Noodle Boy grinned cruelly and shouted on: " Shave your sphincters and prepare for my tweezers of doom! Pass Law 1022 – Freedom for Penguin Livers!"

Just then a little girl walked by.

" STOP! Stop, Wilma of the flying baboons! I desire to suckle on the teat of your wisdom!" Happy Noodle Boy shrieked.

" Huh?" The little girl asked.

" Tough titty said the kitty, but the milk's still sweet!" Happy Noodle Boy shrieked. " STILL SWEET, Gawd dammit! STILL SWEET!"

" Uh…"

" In accordance with the prophecy, we must all flush our toilets simultaneously as the population of Asia jumps to the moon!" Happy Noodle Boy shrieked. " We must not let them create an earthquake! Quick! Cut off the legs of anything you see!"

The little girl patted his head. " You need to eat something, don't you?" She handed him a hamburger.

" EGADS! You think your shriveled raisins will please my hungry nads?"

" I gotta go." The little girl whispered.

" Remember what I told you! One day, your nose hair will freeze, but you will know what to do! You will turn to your children and tell them that, due to the economy, one of them must be fed to the Russians! THE RUSSIANS!" Happy Noodle Boy screamed.

The little girl pulled out a silenced PP7 form beneath her skirt and shot the crap out of Happy Noodle Boy.

****

Subliminal Message: Beware of what is under little girl's skirts.

o-o-o

****

Chapter 3, Part 3: Don't Hang Up!

Johnny lifted up the phone and dialed. He listened as the ringing played over and over a few times. Finally, the phone was picked up. Devi's voice.

" Devi." He said, softly. _You will kill her. You do not feel emotions for her. Reverend Meat is not right, you are the only one who knows the truth about what you feel._

" Johnny?" She exclaimed. " Johnny? Is that you?"

" It is." His voice dropped a few notches to a low grumble. " I was wondering if…"

" Oh, God!" She cried out. " God, I was hoping you were dead. I kept seeing ghostly visions of you. Now I'm hearing you. You have to be alive." She began to shout: " Why couldn't you just die?"

" It's not that easy." Johnny replied. He was breathing uncomfortably. _Damn it, why can't my lungs function properly when I need them to strangle out an important message most?_

" Stop breathing like that." She warned. " Damn it, just stop breathing, _period_. I don't know where you just popped out of, but it seems like you can't die. You just explode out of nowhere, like a fucking daisy. I just - - I - - my life was shit for so long because of you. I'm finally happy, so please, _please_ leave me alone. If you have _any_ human left in you, just do that for me."

" I…" He squeezed the phone cord angrily, pretending it was the neck of some poor asshole. He truly felt like strangling something all of a sudden.

" Johnny." She whispered. " You were such a nice guy, too. I thought you were perfect. The best out of all of them, by far. Why'd you do it? Why mess up a person otherwise so great by being a homicidal maniac?" She said.

" You couldn't understand." Johnny said. " Nobody could ever understand what I went through."

" Damn it. I hate you." Devi shouted. He had to hold the phone away from his ear.

" Can't… can't we meet and try again?" Johnny suggested.

" What?" Devi exclaimed, laughing bitterly. " Do you think I'm crazy?"

" I'd love to try again." Johnny felt the lies stinging his tongue. He hated the fact he was lying. He had never killed so underhandedly, so cruelly before. But it felt so necessary and yet so terrible at the same time, a delicious sin, like dark chocolate. He had to convince her he meant well. Somehow, they had to meet again, so he could finish what he began last time. So he could end that dawning feeling.

" Stop messing with my mind!"

" Please, don't hang up!" He shouted back.

" I hate you!" The phone clacked down and then there was silence.

Johnny slumped against the kitchen wall, staring at his feet in silence. " I've never been one to carry a good phone conversation." He said, finally, to nobody in particular. " Must have gone out of touch with the whole thing."

He turned away from the dim candle on the table. He lifted up a plate that held some wizened apple slices. Chewing one sadly, Johnny sat down on the couch and turned the television on.

**Women Who Think Fruit Are Aphrodisiacs, And MEN Who Go Bananas to Please Them!**

Some poor chap was saying that he painted his nut sack to look like an apple.

Johnny grinned darkly. _It was always comforting to know that you could be worse off._

****

Author's Creepy Subliminal Message: Review! I feel that my story sucks because I am getting so few reviews! *bangs fist on keyboard, keyboard splits in half, and hand is bleeding severely* Damn it, that was my 4th hand! And my 10th keyboard!


	4. Issue 4

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Author's Note: YES! Another update! Boy, do I love writing, or what?

****

Chapter 4, Part 1: Bookstore Dilemma

Devi glanced at the handful of books that were plopped down on the counter, staring at them wearily. Her mind blanked out, filling with a momentary haze that stretched the room and skewed it before her very eyes. She was tired, unbelievably and horrendously tired. She needed to sleep, she needed to live on something more than coffee. Yet, the very thought of closing her eyes for a few hours made her frightened, because she knew that it was just enough time for Johnny to come get her.

She didn't know why she grew so obsessed over him recently. Everything seemed to remind her of him. It had been a week since he called, but every knife she saw made her heart stop in fear. Every creak and step she heard made her spin around to make sure that Johnny wasn't there.

" You gonna scan my books or what?" The fat lady at the counter asked.

Devi flipped all the **Miracle Diet** books around and scanned them. " I'm sorry." Devi murmured.

" You better be. I got's a train to catch." The fat woman looked down at the child she was holding. " My stupid kid's sick again. Ate a sock, the stupid thing. You'd think he'd be able to wait until I come home from work."

" He's one." Devi whispered, horror-struck. " You're not supposed to leave him alone at home."

" What're you, some freakin' teen mom advising ME?" The fat woman roared. " Pack my books right now before I go right up to the manager and tell him what disrespectful workers he's got on staff."

" I'm sorry." Devi hissed through clenched teeth. She dunked the corner of one of the books into the coffee that stood by the cash register. Somehow, ruining the fat lady's books made her feel a hell of a lot better.

The fat lady hustled out, her one-year-old hanging lifelessly from her arms.

Then the next person came up to her. This one had no books in his hands.

" Sir?" Devi asked, uncertainly.

The man had a scarf covering half his face, like Micheal Jackson or something. He looked absolutely frightening. " Give me the money, now." The man whispered.

The world spun dizzily. Devi grabbed the corner of the cashier desk and blinked to steady herself. " Excuse me?" She whispered, hoping that she misheard. That it was just an echo, perhaps some old Johnny-hearing thing coming up again.

" You heard me. Don't make me take out my gun." The man continued. The silver nozzle of a gun poked out from his huge brown leather jacket.

" Oh, shit." Devi whimpered. She reached into the cash register.

" Damn it! You're too slow!" The man whirled around and raised his gun, shooting it at the ceiling. He hit the ceiling light. Suddenly, everything went dark. A few wires drooped from the ceiling, shooting electrical sparks across the floor.

Everyone in the store was screaming. Somewhere, a child was crying.

" Don't hurt anyone!" Devi cried out. " Please, I'll give you the money! Just don't…"

The man turned to her, pressing the gun into her temple. " You're coming with me, darling. I haven't had a nice piece of ass in weeks."

Devi gasped and felt a rush of sweat run down her back. " Please…" She whispered. " I'm… I have AIDS! I have the nastiest case of herpes in Brazil! Uh… um… I don't wipe myself!"

" Makes it more kinky, doesn't it?" The man locked his finger on the trigger. " Besides, I also like mine _dead_."

" Oh my God!" Devi closed her eyes, waiting for death.

She heard a gunshot. She waited to see if her knees would buckle, waited for that rupturing pain of her carotid artery. Instead, she heard a groan come from the man and, as she opened one eye, she saw the robber fall to his knees, obviously dying.

And there was Johnny, standing over him, his face riddled with rage.

" Nny…?" Devi choked out.

Johnny gave her a weary smile. " You really don't wipe yourself?" He kidded, looking absolutely miserable. His eyes were feasting on her, as if she were some moon goddess transcended down to Earth.

Devi felt everything go light around her. It was too much. She promptly passed out, hitting her head hardly against the cashier desk as she did. A warm stream of blood trickled down her face.

" Uh…" Johnny turned around to the rest of the store. " You didn't see me. If anything, the girl - - Devi, she shot the guy. Then she ran."

The remaining conscious people in the store just nodded dumbly.

" If you say ANYTHING about seeing me here!" Johnny shouted. " I'll track you all down and blow your brains out! Even you!" He pointed at a quivering old man. " So keep it hushed."

Johnny looked down at his blood-spattered hands. It was sickening, to have even used a gun. Such a merciless weapon, it removed all the fun that came from slow torturous jabs of a knife. He lifted Devi up and ran from the room.

o-o-o

****

Meanwhile… A Story About the Author

o-o-o

The author was sitting in her favorite chair in her favorite room – the basement – in front of her computer, with Adiemus blasting loudly in her ears. For reference, Adiemus was just celtic music, something like Enya or Enigma. Things that she listened to, being the weirdo she was. She was also typing up her JTHM story.

Of course, all good things do not last very long. She realized she was hungry. Ravenously starving, really, but there was nothing good in the house. After all, the things she ate day-to-day consisted mainly of carrot juice, red peppers, and rice pudding. She also enjoyed cucumber-and-onion-and-milk soup, something only the very brave of stomachs can handle. She ate like a freak. She is not making this up!

Then, things got a bit weird.

She went outside and shuddered away from the sunlight. Standing in the shade of her house, trying to upkeep her very-pale complexion, she realized she needed to find an alternative way to get to the store. She wanted her food, and a copy of the **National Enquirer,** to wipe her ass with.

Luckily, a little spaceship came from (surprise!) space just then.

These four peanut-sized aliens climbed out. Immediately they morphed into these huge things, each the size of about three sumo wrestlers holding hands around a chest nut tree.

The head alien said: " Are you a female member of the homo sapien species?"

The author replied: " I am." The author was brave in this situation. She was also hungry and in a bit of a coffee-withdrawal. She needed to pee too. This was not a good situation to approach any woman in, not to mention the author.

The head alien grinned slyly, which made him look stupid. " We're here to ask you a few questions."

The author nodded. " Do I get some food as a reward?"

" Undoubtedly!" The aliens nodded.

" Okay, bring the questions on, feeble fools." The author sat down on the ground, squashing two little snot-daisies along the way. These daisies were named Mary-Sue and Gary-Stu. She happened to squash those stupid things a lot, but they kept growing back and taking over things like FanFiction.Net.

The first alien asked: " Here is a photo of you. Were you present when this was taken?"

The author blinked. " Uh… _yeah_."

" You have a butcher friend, don't you?" The second alien shrieked. " DON'T YOU?"

" Yes!" She gasped. " It's true!"

" What does he weigh, this butcher?" The third alien wondered.

" Um… he weighs meat." The author said.

" You say that you have a set of basement stairs. Do they go upstairs as well?"

The author rolled her eyes. They rolled right off your computer screen.

" That is all we wanted to know." The fourth alien replied. " It seems we have finally found the answers to the meaning of life!"

" Where's my food?" She asked, bored.

" Don't you want to know the meaning of life?"

" Fuck off. I want food." The author whispered darkly. " I eat very little and very rarely, but when I do eat, it's a gruesome affair. My eating habits are rated R – for violence. So please, spare me from having to eat _you_ as well."

The aliens gave me the author her food and flew off, realizing that nobody on Earth gave a fuck. The author went back inside. Another crisis averted. No deed is too small for… AMAZING AUTHOR WOMAN!

****

Author Sez: Can you tell that I woke up at 4 a.m. to write this? The word of the day is 'somnambulatory'. Go spread the password! Scream it at passerby! Become just like me! (It's like a one-way ticket to the looney bin! No refunds!)

o-o-o

****

Chapter 4, Part 2 – What do You Want From Me?

Johnny stared at Devi. There she was, so close. Why had he averted her murder? She could have been removed from his way. Just that easily, she would have been out of his hair. And equally as easily, he would have had nothing left to prevent him from the downwards spiral towards being free of emotions.

Yet, something had told him to intervene.

He had almost sensed that Devi was in danger. He had jumped out his window and raced to the bookstore, as if something had come over him. He hadn't really even thought about it. Something instinctual inside him told him that he had to save Devi.

Now she was lying in his bed, unconscious, and he was sitting on the floor staring at her, holding a knife. He had tried desperately to kill her, he had raised the knife dozens of times, readying to bring it down. Yet, his arms would lock. Something wasn't letting him kill her.

It was something mechanical, something inside, that stopped him. This love for Devi – it kept throwing a monkey wrench into the machinery that was left of his body. He was frightened about this. This feeling was so very powerful and dominant over him! He hated it.

" Mmm." Devi whispered, turning over.

Johnny stood and put his knife tip at the center of her back. If she were to roll over, she'd spear herself right through. He sat back down and waited.

Two minutes later, he had snatched the knife back and shoved it under the bed. He couldn't do it. He was too weak. And yet, he felt relieved and happy about it. He was ecstatic that he wasn't capable of killing Devi. Yet, there was another part of him that wanted him to massacre her horribly.

" Nny?" Devi said.

He looked up from his hands. " You're awake." He said, softly.

" Oh, God!" She shot up to her feet and raised her arms in a karate stance. " You back away from me right now! How - - oh, man… how did I end up in here?" She looked around, her eyes wide with fear.

" I won't hurt you." Johnny sighed. " As much as I try, I can't do anything to you."

She shivered. " Let me out." Her eyes fell on the bedroom door. It was closed. " What are you going to do with me? Where… what…" She closed her eyes and remembered. " You… you saved me, didn't you? From that man in the book store."

Johnny nodded. He stood up as well, looking downcast. " Yes, I did."

" Why?" She demanded. " Didn't you want me to die?"

" I can't explain it." Johnny grabbed his head, looking absolutely terrified of his own self. " I don't know what's happening to me."

Devi backed up so that she was right against the wall. " Please, let me go! I mean it! The police will notice I'm gone and they'll come for me!"

" I can't let you go." Johnny told her. " I'll keep you here until I'm strong enough to do it."

" Do what?" She asked, fearfully.

" Until I'm strong enough to kill you, of course." Johnny replied. " I really have nothing personally against you. I really do think you're the best thing that's happened to me. You were probably the only real, mutual friend I had. It's a shame that I have to kill you."

" Why do you have to kill me?" Devi shouted. " What the fuck is your problem, Nny? Nobody's making you do anything."

" You wouldn't understand!" He shouted. " It's a long story. A terribly long story."

Reverend Meat grinned at him from the bookshelf on the wall. " Tell her about it. Tell her, together you can revel in your love for each other. Your feelings will disintegrate your insanity. Trust me, love will conquer all. Your feelings hold you slavery."

" No! Nothing holds me slavery!" Johnny shouted.

" Who are you talking to?" Devi asked, frightened. " Are there more people here?"

" No." Johnny replied to her. " I…"

Reverend Meat continued, grinning madly: " You love her. Admit it. You have that feeling in your stomach. You won't be able to kill her. I dare you to keep trying. You can't do it. You're weaker than love is."

" NO!" Johnny slapped Reverend Meat off the bookshelf. " I am strong enough! I am strong enough to do anything I want!" Johnny spun around and shouted at Devi: " I can kill you! My love _won't_ hold me back! It's the only way to eliminate the only thing that holds me back!"

Devi was shaking. " Johnny, what's happening to you?" She whispered, her face even more pale than normal. Suddenly, she wished she could disappear from the eyes of this madman.

Johnny shook his head and left the room. He closed the bedroom door and then locked all five locks. He then pulled shut the second door. She was enclosed in there, like a safe. She began to bang at the door, screaming in fear. He had made sure that the windows were nailed shut and that they were boarded closed. There was no way for her to escape. He would slip her water beneath the door, and food, until he could even things out. Even the score with himself.

He lifted a knife and sighed. He felt so down all of a sudden. Just a terrible feeling. He wanted to go out and kill, to be able to feel in control again. To get that euphoria again.

Reverend Meat's reasoning words echoed back to him. So far, Nail Bunny hadn't spoken yet, but Johnny didn't want him to. The moment Nail Bunny would begin to reason with him, his own mind would be two to one, and he'd slowly split away from his journey towards being emotionless. He couldn't let that happen.

Devi was banging on the door. " Nny! Why are you doing this to me?" She shouted. She was crying. " I never did anything to you! I was in love with you! Damn it!" She kicked the door and broke down in sobs.

Johnny shivered and left the house.

****

Author Sez: Whoo. Kind of a dark ending there. Sorry about that. I was in a dark mood. *grins mysteriously* But putting all that aside, keep reviewing, my pretties. I update VERY often, but only if I get reviews. I really like writing. Hee. And find out which side of Johnny wins his internal battle!


	5. Issue 5

****

Author's Note: Beware the Chemically Imbalanced crabs. I mean it.

****

Chapter 5, Part 1: A Need To Kill

Johnny stumbled out into the dark night, craving to kill. He didn't even understand that compelling drive within him. Perhaps it was a sort of self-actualization, to show that he did determine himself as something of importance in the world. Yet, as he walked down the sidewalk, his hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes roving the area, he couldn't help but wonder _why_.

**Why** was a poisonous word, it meant doubt and fear. This one word made him wonder about his true feelings for Devi. It made him consider options that would involve abandoning his own beliefs. Johnny's eyes fell upon a ritzy club called _Playa del Sol _– Beach of the Sun. It was pretty funny because it was a popular disco hangout for all the preppy teens in the area. It was also dark inside, the lights muted, and filled with clouds from the joints that they smoked.

He could smell all the food and drinks inside too. The alcohol flowing freely, illegal to minors; the invigorating smell of fresh ground coffee. Johnny stepped inside and took a nervous look around. The entire place was packed more than a can of sardines. The second he walked inside, two people bumped into him.

It was a terrific mistake to do.

The girl spun around and laughed in his face. " Did you just feel me up?"

Johnny blinked and took a step backwards so that he was standing in the doorway. " No." He said, finally.

" Oh, come on!" The girl turned to the man standing beside her – obviously her boyfriend – and said: " I could actually feel his hard-on when he bumped into me. Can you believe that?"

Johnny's neck prickled as he could feel what had to be a blush coming upon him. He felt angrier now, too, and in no way felt that this girl deserved to live on, only to annoy others with her horribly nasal voice. 

He pulled aside his trenchcoat and showed her the knife resting in his belt. " I think this is what you felt."

The girl took a step back. " Brandon?" She whispered to her boyfriend. " Tell me that's not a gun."

Brandon replied: " Sweet Lord, he's got a knife!"

The party stopped for a second, everyone staring. Then, suddenly, everyone started singing and chanting: " He's got a knife! He's got a knife!" Everyone had a great time doing a dance along with it, too – sort of a creepy jabbing motion with their hands.

" Seems your friends are too stupid, or even to shallow, to distinguish true danger from a party atmosphere." Johnny said, darkly, unsheathing the knife and pointing it at Brandon.

The girl gasped. " Kill me! Don't kill him! He just got his teeth bleached!"

Brandon grinned his pearly-whites.

Johnny's eyes flashed violently as he jabbed the knife into the girl's throat. It didn't press in far, just enough to draw a little bit of blood from a nice slit. The girl shrieked.

" Don't hurt Maria!" Brandon said, lamely, taking a step backwards. " Yeah, uh… she's my girl, dude."

" You've probably cheated on her. You're in no mood to stick up to her." Johnny pressed the knife in further. Maria was screaming now.

Brandon looked embarrassed. " Maria, don't take it personally. The other ones, they were nothing to me!"

Maria blinked uncertainly. " Free me, you dope!" She shouted through her tears.

Brandon took another step backwards. " Uh… I was meaning to break up, Maria. Uh…" Brandon looked around and shouted: " Uh - - I gotta go!" He ran off into the dark corners of the disco.

Johnny laughed. " Now that you really need them, you see how shallow your friends and loved ones are. Yet you chose to associate with them. No – you actually followed them blindly, doing everything you could to rip the hearts of others into shreds."

" You're sick!" Maria wept.

" Let us evaluate who's sick here. Nobody's even paying attention to you. Your own boyfriend is pretending that he didn't see this happen." Johnny jabbed the knife in fully and watched her shrieking in pain. " You're the one who's sick. I AM NOT SICK." He pulled the knife out and stared at the girl. He waited for the wash of self-satisfaction to come over him. He wanted, more than anything, to feel that good pat-on-the-back feeling that he often got. Yet, nothing – not even the slightest hint of pleasure from the kill.

The other members of the club had by now settled down from their happiness and saw him standing over Maria's body. " Maria's drunk again." Some girl laughed.

Johnny ran out of the disco club and ran up the street. He felt sickened, disheartened, and above all, completely depressed. What had been an attempt to raise his spirits ended up a cruel trick on his own heart. He couldn't enjoy the thrill of the hunt anymore. He felt no euphoria. It didn't give him any satisfaction. All he could feel was this hollow pain, as if there was something he should be doing instead.

Reverend Meat's words were strong in his ears. _They will catch you soon. You're not a flusher anymore. The police can, and will, find you if you keep killing. Subside to your emotions. Become a slave!_

Suddenly, Johnny's heart thumped loudly. Reverend Meat was using reverse psychology on him. But of course! Reverend Meat was trying to threaten him into killing. He kept saying that if Johnny were to actually start evaluating his own true feelings, Johnny would be a 'slave'. It was all presented in a horribly negative image.

Johnny couldn't believe it. In the end, he was being manipulated into doing Reverend Meat's will just by disobeying what Reverend Meat advised. It was so simple, yet so painful to hear. Johnny could feel the horrible shattering pain bursting through him. He was spent of his energy, emotionally worn out, and caked in blood.

There was no joy in it all anymore.

What did he have left?

_Johnny! I loved you! Why are you doing this to me???_

Devi's screams filled his ears. He leaned against the alley wall and couldn't help but let the tears flow out, like a continuous river of pain.

o-o-o

****

Happy Noodle Boy

o-o-o

Happy Noodle Boy was sitting Indian-style on the floor of his bedroom. He had a little aluminum foil hat on his head. He leaned out the window of his bedroom and began to shout at his neighbor.

" YOU! You, the fat pig assaulting his lawn mower! Suckle my grass seeds of doom!"

Happy Noodle Boy then jumped right out the window and latched himself on the leg of the lawn-mowing guy. " Throttle me into euphoric joy! Hey, look, Batman's neck _can_ move!"

The lawn-mowing guy replied, finally: " You're insane."

Happy Noodle Boy gasped in horror. " Egads spells Sdage backwards! You must face my wrath, cookie-dough roller! Take that!" Happy Noodle Boy struck randomly into the air with his hands.

" Press here to call leetle keek!" Happy Noodle Boy added, striking himself squarely in the forehead. He hit too hard and his whole head caved in.

Now Happy Noodle Boy was lying on the ground, bleeding severely from his head. The lawn-mowing guy sort of mowed a bit of a stick figure around him and then tapped Noodle Boy's shoulder. "Uh… Mr. Psychotic screaming thing, you can go back home now?"

Happy Noodle Boy was seeing his life flash before his eyes. " Don't touch me, Daddy! I'm not ripe yet!" He shrieked, and then banged his head against the lawn-mower guy's knee. Guts and brains splashed everywhere.

" Go on! Kill yourself!" Lawn Mower man shouted. " I'm sick of you scaring my children and torturing my wife! You set her on fire, you freak! She didn't smile at me for days now! The last time she showed _any_ facial expression was when she was choking on a bagel!"

" I believe she did scream when she had that bat stuck in her hair net." Happy Noodle Boy said. "You must fly to El Dorado now, my little sparrow! Fly or I'll kick your ass!"

Lawn Mower man nodded and kicked Happy Noodle Boy towards _his_ side of the lawn. "AND STAY THERE, YOU WEIRDO!" The Lawn Mower man shouted.

" You only think you are Mega Plasma man! I am the real Split Banana!" Noodle Boy mumbled before passing out. Too much loss of blood, I guess. What I guess should never be taken as medical advice. Put DOWN the stapler, Toby! Put it down! PUT IT DOWN!

****

Author's Note: I do not, and have never known, a stapler-wielding man named Toby. Perhaps Poncho Gustafo, the man who lives in my head, would know him though.

o-o-o

****

Chapter Five, Part 2: Emotional Probe

Devi picked at the hole in her pants. It was small, on the back of her knee. She could stick her finger through it. She had amused herself for two hours, sticking her finger through the hole and then poking it out the other side, like some alien bolt growing out of her leg. Then, she would realize just how bored and unhappy she was and give up her tirade.

" Johnny." She whispered. " Are you there?"

" Yes." Johnny was sitting on the other side of the door, his back up against the wood. She was sitting propped up against the door as well. Their backs were touching through the wood.

" Why?" Devi asked, finally. " Why me? Didn't you have any other girls? Or did you kill them all too?" She didn't sound sarcastic. She had no wit or sarcasm left. She was tired and ready to die.

She heard a sniffle, and then a stifled cry. " There wasn't anyone." Johnny said, finally.

" Johnny?" Devi exclaimed. She felt triumphant. If she could make him cry, guilt him and milk him for all the emotions he's worth of, he might let her go. " Johnny, you're a good person inside. I know you are. I felt that - - that good guy aura from you. I think this is all just a bit of a mistake. I bet you were in a bad mood." Inside, she kept thinking: _You let me out, and I'll have the cops at your door in seconds._

" Devi, I love you." He said.

Devi felt her heart pounding so hard she could feel it vibrating in her throat and her voice as she replied: " What do you mean?"

" I have to kill you because I love you." He whispered. " It's such a long story. And I don't know what's true and what's fake anymore in my life. There's these voices, and there's all these sides to me, and they come out and I'm not sure what me, the real ME, would want to do."

Devi couldn't help but be intrigued by this. " Tell me more?" She requested.

" It's too depressing." Johnny said, finally. " I don't want you to have yet another thing worry you."

" What does it matter? You'll kill me anyway!" She shouted. She didn't mean to raise her voice, so when she heard it come out, she lowered it greatly and said, in a soothing tone: " Tell me so that I don't feel at fault."

Johnny looked out the window at the starry night. " I don't even remember my past, you know?"

She was quiet.

" All I remember is that something bad happened to my parents. I was little, maybe Squee's age. I guess that's why I figured he needed to have good parents… when I was his age, I'd have done anything to have my parents back. Then… I just don't remember. It's like I was a couple different people at the same time. The voices seemed to remember…"

" What voices?" Devi demanded.

" I wasn't always this way!" Johnny strained out.

" What voices?" Devi asked again.

" The Doughboys. Nail Bunny. Reverend Meat. All of them. They're just inanimate objects, I _know_ that, but they have… have this reasoning power. I hear them. They use the arguments I feel inside me against me."

" Johnny…" Devi felt pain inside just hearing this. Johnny didn't seem like a bad person by nature. It seemed a lot like the voices were making him do this, whatever they were. " … were the Doughboys those things in the room, when I walked in? Where they the ones that wanted you to kill me?"

" They told me I'd never be happy. They said that if I don't stop and kill us both, the happy feeling would rage itself and ruin me. It'll go away and I'll be left unhappy again. It would be like sampling a drug and then left with the… the dysphoria." He sighed. " I don't know if that makes sense."

" They were wrong." Devi told him hardly. " I would have stayed with you. Well, maybe not… if you killed others, I might now have… but if you were just yourself, just the Johnny from the bookstore, just that personality, not the voices… that's the Johnny I loved. The one I'd have stayed with."

" But was that me?" Johnny asked. " There's so many voices. Which one was the real me? All the voices left me and they're all in different things. Whichever one I chose to follow, I'd just end up unhappy, or led into a dead end."

" Maybe because you're a combination of a few. Hell, I've had my own weird voices. But - - but I got over them. I found myself through staying busy." Devi laughed to herself. " It seems so silly to think back on all that, in fact. Just so weird to sit here and remember all those things that I heard… and how I realized that the voices weren't real. Once I just started ignoring them, confronting them, they went away."

" I don't know if I can do that." Johnny admitted. " They seem too real, too intuitive. They know too much about me."

" That's because they ARE you, damn it! They know this stuff because you created them with your mind!" Devi shouted. " Can't you see? You're just arguing with yourself for all this time. Pick the side that's the most pacific, the most peaceful."

" Nail Bunny, maybe. He's the most reasoning." Johnny said, softly.

" Yeah, whatever." Devi told him. " Whichever it is."

" I've been ignoring Nail Bunny." Something dawned on Johnny. " That's why… I've been ignoring Nail Bunny. Reverend Meat talked me into ignoring him… it was all just this sick reverse psychology."

Devi had no idea what Johnny was talking about. It seemed like Johnny was making strides though. " Yes, yes! That's it!" She said, faking glee.

Johnny jumped up and said: " I won't kill you. I'll ignore them!"

" Let me go?" Devi suggested. _I'm going to call the cops on you. I think a few years in therapy will even you out. _She was still frightened beyond belief by him. She also felt oddly intrigued, though.

" I can't let you go." Johnny said. " You'd know too much. You'd tell the cops."

" DAMN!" Devi sighed. " So you'll just keep me here? IS THAT LOVE? How can you even say you love me if you treat me like this? I wouldn't even treat my worst enemy like this!"

Johnny shrank away from the doorway. " I'm sorry." He said, finally. " It isn't you. It's me." It sounded like an echo from an old breakup line that he'd heard from way back in high school. Girls turned him down so much back then.

That one simple statement had brought back some sort of memory of the past.

Johnny grinned grimly. " I'll try that ignore-the-voices thing."

_Good. Maybe you'll be normal enough to let me out,_ Devi thought. _I don't know how much longer I can handle in here._

o-o-o

****

Meanwhile…

o-o-o

There was a small little bunny sitting in the middle of a field. There was a big sign behind him that read, "Rabbit Fields". He looked happy as he nibbled on a single clover in front of him. Then, you catch a sight of what is behind him – he is sitting on a foot-wide, foot-long patch of grass in the center of a huge parking lot, with Apartments all over, each with huge flashing letters: "Rabbit Fields".

The bunny sighed and looked up at the sky. " Sometimes, pollution is pretty upsetting. My left eye is clouding over. I can't breathe at night. My children had been killed after humans bulldozed through our house with… well, a bulldozer."

Very sad classical music is playing in the background.

The heart-wrenching bunny continues: " Then… you won't believe this, but… a horde of evil chemically imbalanced crabs attacked me, and now I no longer have nipples. I feel sick all the time. I hope that the green oozing thing on my forehead isn't some weird growing tumor."

A plane crashes in the distance. All these bloody people stumble out.

" ARRGGHHHH! AM ANGRY! Must kill!" A man shouted. He grabbed the bunny and smashed it with his club.

Bunny's eyes are just basically smushed out. The Bunny says, as the last word: " Hug a tree today!"

In the distance, people are torching trees.

****

Author Sez: Whoa… Screen growing distorted before my very eyes… and it's not even 1:00 am yet…

o-o-o

****

End Note: Yeah, I think that's enough for chapter 5. More later… I just bought myself a JtHM shirt. It's black with Nny on it, he's like a mummy and holding 2 knives, and there's hieroglyphics on the back (says NNY, THM in Egyptian). And… yeah, that's about it. Just thought I'd mention it. Another black outfit for me! YAY!


	6. Issue 6

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Chapter Six, Part 1: Forgive Me

Johnny rested his head on his hands, his heart overwrought with grief. He had come to an epiphany within the last few hours, and now in the bleak hours of dawn, he could hear nothing in his house. No voices other than the soft treading of Devi's feet on the ceiling above him, and her erratic breathing pattern. He frightened her, but he didn't even dislike her. In fact, he felt he loved her even more. It was a strange feeling.

She didn't love him though. She had no intentions to ever forgive him. He knew that if he were to let her go, he'd fall like a star from the sky and be extinguished. By letting her go, he'd both be giving himself into the hands of the law and losing his only true love.

He wrung his hands in despair.

A floor above, Devi knelt on the floor and put her ear to the wood, listening to him. " I know you're there." Devi said. " I'm hungry. At least feed me, if you want to keep me here forever." She thought to herself, _please give it with toothpicks. I want to kill myself._

Johnny stood and went to his kitchen. With a tenderness flowing through him, he began to prepare some soup in a pan. He opened the can it came in, turned the can over, and let the cylinder-shaped glob slide out. He mashed it apart with a knife and then placed it over the heat. Soon the smell of simmering chicken-noodle filled the air.

Devi hugged her sides in her room, feeling her stomach grumble. She was hungry, and tired, but she didn't want to sleep. She felt that the moment she'd allow herself to sleep, he'd kill her.

He went to the room he held Devi in and slipped the bowl underneath it, along with a spoon. "Enjoy." He said, sadly.

" Fuck you!" Devi exploded. " How can you even expect me to enjoy _anything_?" She stared at the rounded edge of the spoon and sighed. " Can't they make spoons with serrated edges or something? I can't kill myself with this…!"

" Devi." He said. " I don't hate you."

" Well, _I_ hate you, so fuck off."

" Why?" Johnny asked. " I haven't really done anything to you yet."

" You've tried to kill me!" Devi said.

" Yet I saved your life." Johnny countered.

" But you made an attempt at my life!"

" So? You tried to kill me too… remember? You beat the stuffing out of me." Johnny told her.

Devi was silent. " You hear voices."

" So did you."

" Stop making me look like the one who should reevaluate the situation! You have me locked inside a bedroom, you bastard!" She roared venomously.

" I would let you out without a second thought if I could. Yet I know you'd run to the police and tell on me. Can't you let me try for a relationship again?" Johnny asked. " I mean… I guess I can change…"

" You can't just erase something like that out of your personality!"

" Erase something like _what_?"

" You're a psychopath! A schizophrenic murderer!"

Johnny stood there in awkward silence, feeling a growing weight on his shoulders. He was getting pissed off again, and he wondered if it wouldn't be too much of a big deal to just kill her and free his mind of this nuisance. Something else made him want to stick it out, just to see whether there was an alternative ending for him.

" Hello? Are you there?" Devi asked.

" Yes."

" I'm done." She shoved the bowl out from beneath the door. " Leave me alone."

Johnny took the bowl and stared at it.

" I could really use to go to the bathroom." Devi said, finally. " You might as well prove that at least you're not an animal by letting me go use it."

" I…" Johnny knew that, as far as girls go, they had special needs when it came to bathroom use. Suddenly he regretted not building in a bathroom adjacent to the bedroom when he had the chance. His eyes narrowed and he stood up, opening the door.

Devi jumped to her feet and tried to race past him into the hallway. Johnny grabbed her hands, holding her still, and led her to the bathroom, tossed her in and closed the door.

He heard her shuffling around. Then, she sighed loudly and said, to herself: "Shit!"

" What's wrong?" Johnny asked.

" Nothing." She grumbled with a fury tinting her voice. She let out a blood-curdling, angry shriek. " This is just… un-fucking-believable. I am now pissed off beyond any boundaries."

" What's wrong?" Johnny asked again, feeling a sudden flash of cold sweat cross over him. This was getting just a bit weird. Everything had gone wrong with his plan so far, and there was just no way he could get Devi killed, nor get her on his good side. He wondered how long it would last before he'd cave and let her go.

Devi sighed. " Can't I have any privacy, damn it?"

Johnny shrugged. " I can go."

" Go!" She shouted. " I hate the idea of you listening in on me."

" Are you sick though?" Johnny asked aloud.

" No… well… okay." She let out a deep breath. " You wouldn't happen to have any tampons, would you?"

o-o-o

****

The Author Steps In

While Johnny is Out Shopping for Feminine Products

o-o-o

I don't know if my readers care to hear about my dull life, so I will just pop in here and see if you do. This story begins as of now. This is sort of a true story, sort of not true.

I was walking down the street when some old lady stopped me. She just literally jumped in my path, and you know how huge old lady's tits are. She just literally leveled me with her cantaloupes. There was a moment of awkward silence and then I said, " Excuse me."

" Where do y' think you're goin'?" She demanded, putting her hands on her hips (if she could find them through her skin).

I looked down at my black-and-red lace shirt for inspiration. I had a little iron-on button pinned to it. It said 'Life's a Bitch and Then You Die'. I figured that this would be a good moment to reflect on how bitches rule most people's lives anyway.

" Well? Think you can just stroll your way down the street dressed like THAT?" She demanded.

I don't think I was dressed too awfully. Maybe it was the black nail polish that upset her. Or the fact that my black scarf dangled to my knees, just level with my huge boots. I shrugged and said: " I have to roll in the garbage can." I motioned at the garbage can standing on my front lawn. I was getting impatient.

" It's kids like you that ruin the neighborhood, y'know? Bringin' in your gangs and stuff."

" Gangs?" I spun around on my heels while blinking and breathing simultaneously. Yep, I'm one of those multi-taskers. "I'm drunk on art, for Crissake. I don't even do drugs."

" You don't look like a good student though." The woman tried lamely.

Nasty old women are really mean to me sometimes. " I have a 5.33 GPA. Straight A's. All Honors and College courses, and I'm a sophomore. I'm sorry, but I'll just shut up before I brag about all the scholarships I'm piling." I turned away and started to head home.

" Your parents look like nice people!" She shouted at me.

" Nice touch." I muttered.

" How dare you whisper inaudibly!" She shrieked. She raised the bazooka she had oh-so-subtly hidden in her monstrous cleavage. " I'll blow you to hell, Goth kid!"

I blinked. I do that a lot. Really!

" I don't know how they can let you dress like this! And paint your fingernails black!" She fired the bazooka.

Perhaps it was fate, but I caught the bazooka missile by using the gap in Madonna's front teeth. Horrifyingly loud applause ensued. Because of the pure nuisance of the James Bond theme song, I was driven into an insane cackle, and I tapped the bazooka missile, and the shrill voice behind "Die Another Day" had gotten no mercy to die, indeed, another day. I blew up all the tapes and CDs, that is, not the person. The person just _won't_ leave the spotlight.

The only reason I wrote that whole last paragraph was because the stupid song was playing on the radio.

I sighed and stared at the sunset. There were some pretty huge flocks of crows flying around. " It will rain." I whispered, eyeing their flying patterns. Indeed, a rainstorm began just then. I like rain. I turned around and told the annoying old lady: " You really aren't that fat. You're just experiencing a cell surplus. Or… oh wait! … you're just upsized petite. Yeah." Filled with excuses for society's own lack of care for their health, I moved inside my house and sat down.

Then my parents took me to church. I wore my Nny shirt. It was weird that the priest recognized the shirt and even said he read the comics. I don't know whether I should be traumatized or not. Anyway, many hours later, and I mean _many_, I realized I had to actually finish writing this story.

I like fried cauliflower. I just ate some. Maybe it's unusual to fry cauliflower at midnight. I haven't befriended anyone normal enough to know.

o-o-o

****

Chapter 6, Part 2: The One That Got Away, Take Two

Johnny knocked on the bathroom door. " I bought your… eh… vaginal harpoons, or whatever they're called." He knocked again. " I killed the store guy because of you. He said that he always knew I was a woman." He paused for effect, then whispered: " The _asshole!"_

He stood there idly. " Devi, you alive?"

There was no reply from within the bathroom.

" Uh… well, odds are, you could have fallen off the toilet and gotten paralyzed." He thought aloud. " That means I'd have to come inside and untwist your spine."

There was still no reply.

" So if you're in an incriminating position, I promise I'll look away." Johnny rambled on. He had a bad feeling inside. " So, uh… I'm coming inside now. So…"

He pushed the bathroom door open and stepped inside, both eyes closed. He opened one eye and looked around the floor to see if Devi was lying anywhere in a crippled heap. Then he looked at the toilet. There wasn't anything there other than some dust.

He glanced at the bathroom window. The only window he forgot to board up. It was wide open. The curtains were billowing into the room in the cool breeze.

" Damn it!" Johnny shouted. " Damn it!" He grasped at his stomach, which suddenly twisted into a worried knot. He raced out of the bathroom frantically and yanked out a tampon, smacking it against his wrist. " I want to die!" He moaned, jabbing it down. It bent in half. " What the fuck…?" He realized what he was doing and dropped the box of tampons. 

The house stood in an ominous silence.

" She's going to call the cops!" Johnny wrung his hands in despair. " I'm done for! Well, I won't let them! She won't win this one… she denied me. I would have taken her back. I did everything to make her forgive me. No, death is the ultimate defeat. No…" He paced frantically, tearing at his hair in fury. "No! I won't let the cops get me! I'll kill myself, that's what I'll do!"

" Johnny."

" Nail Bunny." Johnny whispered.

" You're releasing your inner Psycho-Doughboy again… the desire to end your life, rivaled by the desire to keep going, just to keep tormenting yourself with how miserable life is." Nail Bunny's voice droned. The little Bunny head floated up over his shoulder.

Johnny shivered in fear. " I'm over with."

" Run, Johnny. You can still make up for your erring ways. You can still…"

" Where do I go?" He shouted. " Where can I go? I don't have anyone's house to stay at… and… and Reverend Meat was right. The cops _can _get me now. I'm not a flusher anymore!"

" Remember the Johnny that had once painted such sensitive, beautiful artwork?" Nail Bunny asked. " That Johnny was rational. He hadn't the blood of many innocents on his hands. Back then, you truly had only murdered your true persecutors, _real _assholes. Now you have strayed too far." Nail Bunny shook his head. " As your own conscience degraded, you built up a powerful defense against reason and emotion."

" What're you trying to say?"

" Think. You saved Devi's life twice. She does owe you that much." Nail Bunny said. " Try and see if she'll call the cops. The moment some sort of search for you is announced on TV or the radio, you can split then. But stick it out for now."

Johnny nodded finally. " I'll stick it out."

" You should really rediscover yourself. Try painting." Nail Bunny muttered. " See, I would do that too, if I had any arms…"

o-o-o

****

Chapter 6, Part 3: Unsure

Devi huddled into the blanket and picked up the phone. She felt a series of painful thoughts, and then she dialed Ian. The phone rang.

" Hello?" Ian answered.

" Ian!" Devi blubbered out, feeling her eyes mist over with tears. " Oh, God…"

" Devi!" He exploded. " I've been trying to call you for two days now! I asked Tenna and she said you've never even been back to your apartment."

" I…" She shuddered. " I was just…" She couldn't bring herself to say it. Johnny's tired, worn face played before her eyes, and she could feel his cold hands burning at the area where he touched her wrists, even now. Devi couldn't understand why, but trying to blame him would be difficult. She knew he was simply too far gone, too irrational. She heard him reading aloud from his dairy at night, she heard his thoughts and ideas. He explained to her things from his own point of view in these two days. Though she completely and utterly hated the way he was, she also sympathized, and even felt a bit jealous that he could so freely exterminate his problems. Yet, she knew it gave him more and more problems, and that led him down a spiral into doom.

Ian ranted on, along to the sound of him slurping what had to be his trademark tapioca pudding: "I heard about the killing in the bookstore, but they all said that you, you sort of struck back and killed the guy. This is all crazy rumor, but eyewitnesses say that it was you who did it."

Devi realized Johnny must have threatened the witnesses. Oh well, he wasn't entirely rooting for her, he was also looking out for himself. " I…" She wondered if she should deny it. He saved her life though. It was all so difficult to decide! " I had to fight back. Self-defense, you know?" She laughed hoarsely.

" You did pretty well. _Too _well." Ian coughed uncomfortably. " Pretty bloody scene you left. So… so I guess you just ran?"

" Yeah." She said, affirmatively. " I was worried stiff that they'd think it was my fault. I, uh… I hid in a hotel for a while, but I'm back."

" Good. Good." Ian sighed. " You could have just called me. I dabbled with some law, and I'd have told you that self-defense is not a crime… OH GOOD LORD!" A loud explosion rocked in the background of Ian's house. " SHIT!"

" What the hell was that?" Devi exclaimed.

" Nobody told me you can't heat grapes in the microwave!" Ian shrieked.

" Why on Earth would you do _that_?" Devi spat.

" Don't tell me what to eat and not eat!" Ian grumbled. " I happen to like warm grape juice squeezed into my tapioca, okay?"

" Excuse me, I'm having a crisis here, and you heat up food? As if this is some sort of movie you're watching?" Devi shouted.

" I was hungry! I thought you'd take a while to get it all out, you know, just share with me. Then we can be on the road to emotional healing." Ian explained.

" Why don't you just grab some popcorn and pull up a chair, Ian?" Devi screamed into the phone. " And stare at the phone awhile. Maybe you'll get a life." She slammed the phone down, seething. She wouldn't cry; only weak girls cried. Girls who sat at home Saturday nights and couldn't get a date. Girls who tried out for the cheerleading team and didn't make it.

She blinked a couple of times, clearing her range of vision, and then picked up the phone again. She had to do something. Call someone, join some side. She knew that the longer she tried to linger in the middle, the more Johnny could kill. But would she do more damage by calling the cops, or by trying to "soothe" him?

She stared at the phone, wondering who to call.

The cops… or Johnny?

****

Author's Note: I am so sorry! There is so little humor in this chapter! I happened to enjoy the angst-factor, and if you didn't laugh once during this chapter, I'm sorry. :-) Please tell me in the review if it was funny enough… I think the next chapter will be more humorous… I didn't have time to come up with any nonsensical ramblings for a Happy Noodle Boy issue, and I don't think Johnny had the time to draw it anyhow.

****

By the Way! Did any of you see a photo of Jhonen ever? *rowr* Excuse me, but the guy's very good looking. *stops talking realizing that her reviewers had long ago backed away and logged off the Internet* Well, okay then. I'll go write chapter 7 now. I'll try to write more of this when I'm not a zombie. 

(Today's Discussion topic: Insomnia… a curse or the creative mind's blessing?)


	7. Issue 7

****

Chapter 7, Part 1: What To Do?

Johnny heard the phone ringing. He had closed his eyes and proceeded to sit in a meditating silence, trying to recover some strength, for his severe lack of sleep. He opened his eyes again, lifted the phone, and cradled it to his ear. " Start talking." He said hardly.

" It's the police. Come out of the house with your hands up!" A voice barked from the other end.

" Devi…?" He asked.

She laughed nervously. " Call it guilt, but… I won't call the cops on you."

Johnny's hands trembled and he had to keep the phone balanced entirely between his shoulder and his cheek. " Oh? Oh! That's great!" He looked around nervously, trying to see if he was dreaming. Nothing out of the ordinary though. A quick pinch to the arm convinced him fully.

" That's just about it though." Devi said. " This is the last time I hope to talk to you. The last time to even _see_ you, to be honest. I just don't want to deal with you anymore."

Johnny nodded, then realized she couldn't see him nod through the phone and said: " I can understand that you want nothing to do with me. I have thought about it for the last few hours. All I have to do is figure out what to do with these tampons."

Devi laughed. " Sometimes I think you're the old Nny."

Johnny grinned blandly. " Hmm."

" I have to go." She said. " Before this one moment of fondness passes. I want to end it with a happy feeling for you, okay?" Devi sounded a bit sad.

" Don't you have any feelings in you for me anymore?" Johnny pleaded.

" No." She lied. " I don't." It was better not to lead him on.

" Goodbye." He said, hanging up first, so as not to hear the click of the phone from her end. The click that would separate them forever, a click that made him hurt inside.

He sat there, feeling lost and alone. He whispered, out loud: " I don't want to kill anymore." It hung heavily in the air, a statement that finalized his decision. " I just don't want to do it anymore."

Nail Bunny replied, sagely: " It's always wise to allow your better sides to win, Nny."

" It's too late though." Johnny countered. " I can give up now, but she had already moved on. I'm giving it up for her, but she'll never even look at me again."

" Love is a painful thing. Your unrequited love is just one variation of thousands of themes of love. You should do this for her, and for yourself. Perhaps changing gradually will reinvent you in her eyes." Nail Bunny explained.

Johnny rubbed his temples thoughtfully. " What if it doesn't? What if she never wants to come back to me?"

" Then you would have won anyway. You've done your part, now you need to rest and recover. Perhaps lying low, continuing your art career, and writing some more intelligent things other than Happy Noodle Boy will lead the way to recovery." Nail Bunny told him.

" Eventually all the voices will fade away." Johnny added.

" Yes. I will be gone too, though. You'd have to find my reasoning within you then." Nail Bunny told him.

" I hate the feeling of being alone!" Johnny said. " That's why I invented you…"

" So now you remember another thing. You recall what led you to want to have us voices. You felt alone, and with dozens of combating forces in you. It would have killed you to keep them all inside, so you assigned them to objects around you. You let them duke it out. Now you'll be left alone again, and with all the voices inside. It will be very hard to learn to let the good ones win." Nail Bunny said. " But you can do it."

Johnny looked outside at the slate gray sky. " I hate it, _everything_, I hate it!" He covered his eyes with his hands and sat there in a poised silence.

" Your easel waits. Paint, Nny. Learn how to release your feelings through your paint." Nail Bunny told him.

Johnny stood up and yanked out the dusty old easel from the closet, and then his paint set. He would try again, try to master an art he had known so dearly many months before.

o-o-o

****

Meanwhile… Squee's Nightmare!

o-o-o

Squee was dreaming again.

This time he was walking down a street, eating peacefully, when a vision of his parents appeared in front of him.

Squee gasped and dropped the lollipop he was sucking. " You look just like Mommy and Daddy!" He whimpered.

His Father smacked him. " We are Mommy and Daddy, you idiot!"

Squee put his thumb in his mouth and whimpered.

" Todd!" His Mother scolded. " Don't suck anything not meant to be sucked. Suck only suckable things that are suck-worthy, like suckers." She lifted his lollipop from the dirt. " While you're at it, we have some spaghetti stains in Daddy's shirt. That would be dinner."

" No!" Squee shrieked, frightened. He felt that, at least in the mental hospital, he'd be free of their control.

" Squee, we have other news for you." His Mom said. " You'll have a brother." Suddenly, his mother's stomach was split in half, like that scene in Alien, and this gross little baby rolled out, bit in half his own umbilical chord, and threw himself against Squee, choking him.

" AHHHH!" Squee shrieked in fear.

His mother's body fell to the ground, a bloody empty skin-shell.

The little baby was Pepito. " Hey, Squee! How are you? Did you miss me?" Pepito laughed in his face. His breath smelled worse than the smelliest smell that ever smelled. That is pretty foul, mind you.

" Don't hurt me!" Squee whimpered, sobbing.

" Come with me!" Pepito dragged him up a hill and showed him the world's view from up there. "See out there, kid?"

" Mmm-hmm?" Squee squealed out.

" Watch!" Pepito snapped his fingers. Suddenly, everything was in flames.

" NO!" Squee gasped. He could see everything, as far as the eye could see, go up in flames.

" And guess what, Squee?" Pepito lifted Shmee and dangled him over the Cliffside. " Look who's getting burned next!"

Squee gasped and threw himself off the cliff, catching Shmee.

Squee woke up, having wet his pants.

" Oh… you're still alive." The nurse reading the heart monitor said. " We were all excited too. Your heart pure damn stopped for a second."

" I wet my pants." Squee mumbled, embarrassed.

The nurse wasn't even listening. She plopped a Band-Aid on his face and walked off, muttering: "Get well soon."

Squee hugged Shmee and rocked back and forth. A sign on the wall said: _If you can read this, your medication isn't strong enough._

o-o-o

****

Chapter 7, Part 2: The Painting

Two weeks later, Devi opened her apartment door, ready to go outside and buy some more chicken soup cans, when she saw a tall, thin package propped up against the door. " What's this?" She wondered, pulling it inside.

The label on the package read: **To Devi from Nny C.**

She wondered if she should open it or not. It could contain highly explosive… uh… explosives, and if she were to open it, she'd have to manually yank out shrapnel from her ass for a week. Devi tore the wrapping open anyway.

A painting slid out. It was in majority done in dark colors, and it showed a girl dressed in black standing on a cliff, looking at the dark turbulent waters below, obviously ready to jump. Then, behind the girl, a shadowy figure, like a boy, holding her hand.

It was her in the painting, and that was Nny in the background. Thin, dark, shadowy, nothing to distinguish his features other than a smudge of dark beige against black.

" Sweet Jeezus." She moaned, looking the painting over. It was absolutely gorgeous. Then, she turned it over. On the back, he had signed it. So messily, of course, that his last name was just a blur. "Johnny C---."

" What're you looking at?" Tenna appeared in the doorway from the kitchen.

" Package." Devi replied. " Look what _he_ painted."

" Ian?" Tenna asked, looking at the painting. " That is _so_ romantic."

" No… Nny." Devi sighed.

" Oh, man." Tenna shook her head. " That weirdo has the hots for you, what can I say?"

Devi glanced out into the distance blankly. " What's really scary is that I'm not sure anymore whether I have feelings for him or not."

" Look, you _need_ to call Ian right now and strike up a date. The moment you're out with Ian, you'll forget Johnny. Trust me, you need fresh air." Tenna told her. " How about it?" Tenna handed her the phone.

Devi nodded. " You're right. I need to go out there and enjoy what I have."

" What you have is a successful psychology major. Trust me, there's no _way_ Ian will ever do anything bad to you." Tenna grinned. " Okay?"

" Okay…" Devi dialed Ian.

o-o-o

****

Chapter 7, Part 3: Devi's Date

o-o-o

Devi glanced up from the wineglass and smiled tentatively at Ian. " So, how's everything at the office?" Ian held a pretty good, $19 an hour, steady job at a psychologist's office. So far he was just an assistant, and that meant he did the original checkup and sign-in of patients. Ian was moving up the psychologist spectrum though.

" Someone barfed on me." Ian confessed. " Some psychotic little boy peed his pants later on, too."

" That's horrible." Devi said, though she didn't really feel that way. " Did anyone help the boy out?"

" Well, I guess so." Ian shrugged. " I don't really deal with those things. I think they took away the boy's teddy bear as punishment."

" Oh." Devi blinked sadly. " Hey, listen, Ian. I'm sorry for my outburst yesterday."

" No problem. You were facing a positively traumatizing situation. It was a defense mechanism." Ian smiled happily. " Trust me, it's nothing worse than what I've seen before at work."

" Please don't analyze me." Devi warned.

" Oh, alright. I can see how my constant analyzing could have strained our relationship."

" You're doing it again!" Devi sighed. " You're going to force me into a rage-filled frenzy if you keep this up."

" Devi, do you still have feelings for Johnny?" Ian asked, seriously.

" Do you _have_ to bring his name up?" Devi asked.

" It seems that you still do, and I'm worried."

" Devi!" She heard someone whisper from behind her just then.

Devi turned. Johnny was sitting at a table just adjacent to theirs. Her eyes widened and she mouthed: _Do Not Talk To Me!_

" We need to talk!" Johnny said, loudly.

" Who the heck is that?" Ian asked, looking at Johnny.

" Just an old acquaintance." Devi lied through gritted teeth. " Excuse me."

Devi stood and walked to the bathroom. She felt like throwing up all of a sudden. As she stopped in front of the bathroom, Johnny emerged from behind a potted plant.

" Devi!" He said, finally. " I know we decided that you would never have to look at me again, but…"

" Keep your word, Nny!" She threatened. She could feel her heartbeat increase. She hated him so much! Why did he have to make her feel so caught, as if she were a deer in the headlights?

" … Listen to me." Johnny said. " My friend's in trouble." 

" You have friends?" She exclaimed. " Or are we speaking about one of your voices?"

" It's this little boy neighbor. He's being held in the mental institute where Buttface Ian works." Johnny said.

" What am I supposed to do?" Devi spat.

" Steal his access card."

" How am I supposed to do that?" She asked.

" Pretend you are hugging him, however sickening that is, but in the meantime remove his access card from his rear pocket." Johnny offered.

" Why would I do _anything_ to help you?" Devi demanded.

Johnny gave her a sad face. " I'm working so hard to change myself for you, that's why."

" Damn it!" She fumed. " You're insane. I wouldn't want to ever be with you. Get that through your thick head! Here…" She pulled out her switchblade and handed it to him. " Just do yourself a favor and kill yourself."

Johnny pocketed the knife for later use and replied: " Devi, listen to me."

" I'm through with you." Devi said. " I really am. You don't frighten me. If you want to kill me, go ahead." She hissed. " I'm tired of hiding."

" If only you could talk to Nail Bunny!" Johnny said. " He'd explain everything. Why I do everything that I do."

" I know why you do it. You're simply crazy." Devi told him. " And now you're really become pathetic, crawling back to me, groveling at my feet. You're not your old self at all."

" I don't know what I am." Johnny said.

" To be honest, I preferred the bookstore-Johnny to all of them." Devi said, tenderly. " The one that stood in a mysterious shadowy way, always a big question mark as to what was inside. Very calm, rational, romantic, quiet, and endlessly patient. You were perfect. Then… then you had to ruin everything."

" I can still change! I didn't think I could, but I made Reverend Meat disappear already. And the Doughboys… and Nail Bunny disappeared last night." Johnny told her. " I'm working on it."

" Well, find yourself, fast, and then realize you need help." Devi told him, walking away.

Johnny looked down at his wrists. Suddenly he wished to slit them. He wanted to die more than ever. What had he become, but a hapless, misshapen grovel-driven freak? He was a kiss-boot to a girl, something that was worse than death. He wanted to die, plainly and simply. It would save him from weeks of hard work and self-discovery.

Meanwhile, Devi returned to her seat with Ian. She smiled at Ian. " Sorry about that."

" It's fine." Ian replied.

They began to eat, but suddenly Ian fell head-first into his soup bowl.

The waiter stared in disbelief and said: " Couldn't even wait until I brought spoons!"

Devi stared at the back of Ian's head. It was a bloody mess.

Johnny emerged from the shadows, looking embarrassed. " I'm sorry, I had to do this." He knocked the waiter out as well with a faucet spout he was carrying from the bathroom. Then, he turned and took out Ian's access card. " Squee, I'm coming." He whispered. " I promised I'd look out for you…"

" Nny…?" Devi exclaimed, frightened.

" Don't worry. Ian's fine." Johnny said. " He'll regain consciousness soon, as will the waiter. They might not remember the past few days though."

Devi shook her head, stupefied. " Why didn't you just kill them?" She hissed, hugging her sides nervously.

" Killing does nothing for me anymore." Johnny looked away, looking very sad. " Nothing makes me happy anymore."

Devi shook her head. " Why don't you just get some help?" She asked.

" I'm not a criminal, that's why." Johnny said.

" Oh, right. You're a _flusher_." Devi sighed. " What if that was all just a weird vision of yours, too, Nny?"

" Why else couldn't they catch me? I didn't even cover up my footprints." Johnny told her.

" Perhaps you're just lucky." Devi prompted.

" Lucky." Johnny scoffed. " I want to die every moment that I live."

" Nny…" She said, nervously.

" Sorry to bring your hopes down... I'm just breaking into a mental hospital. I won't stay." Johnny grinned at his own meager joke. " I'll see you around." He hopped out the window. " If you hear anything about some psychiatrists getting cleaved, don't be surprised."

" I thought you wouldn't kill anymore!" She shouted after him into the night darkness outside the restaurant's realm. Nothing replied but the cricket's chirping. She closed her eyes and felt a wash of pure fury drive over her. She was sick and tired of Johnny, sick and tired of Ian, and sick and tired of her own life.

Johnny was trying to reform himself, and perhaps if she did return his affections for her, she would reawaken a lost emotion deep within him. Devi feared him, though, it was a natural and instinctual fear. He was not a man, nor a beast. He was many people all at once trapped in one, and he didn't know which person he really was, which voice was his and which was created by his ill mind.

" Great. Suddenly I'm thinking like Ian. Analyze, analyze, analyze." She mumbled. She patted Ian's hand and stood, feeling she was about to vomit again. It was all too much, all at once. Suddenly she was accomplice in another of Johnny's crimes. And somehow, she felt she was right to do it.

o-o-o

****

Happy Noodle Boy

Last Issue from Johnny C

Sorry Homeless guys. I guess you'll all die soon enough anyway. It's been fun.

o-o-o

Happy Noodle Boy pulled out a block of cheese and put it down. " Great cheesy block of custard yum! I worship thee! Your radiance makes my eyes dry out and turn into prunes!"

He fell to his knees, bowing to it.

" I lick the salt off your toes. So many spoons, so little time!"

" Get up, you bum! You're under arrest!" A policeman shouted.

" AHHH! FLAMING DIARRHEA! FLEE, BUTT MONKEY!" Noodle Boy shouted fiercely, choking the policeman.

The policeman flogged him angrily with a stick. " You get off me right now, or I shall use the arm of the law!"

" You have consumed enough doughnuts, my portly friend!" Noodle Boy hissed in the policeman's ear. " My anus itches for your rectal bacteria."

" Get off, you weirdo!" The policeman lifted a huge mechanical arm. " You asked for it!" He slapped Noodle Boy with it. Then the policeman lifted a shark. " The Jaws of Life! Ironic that it'll be your death!" The shark bit off Noodle Boy's head.

" Ass monkey! Butt munch!" Noodle Boy cursed as he slid down the beast's stomach.

Deep in the gurgling acid-filled depths of the shark's stomach, Noodle Boy shouted: " Acid drops keep falling on my scalp! Fred, I want no poodles! Flap like the titties of an elderly sumo wrestler! Flap, damn you! FLAP!"

Noodle Boy's head was slowly being processed by the acid, and as the remaining scraps of his mouth floated around, he shrieked: " Death will not conquer me! I prepare my bladder for spontaneous release! TV Hump Joy Joy! Whee!"

And then, he was gone.

o-o-o

****

Author's Note: Nny goes to free Squee… Devi will have to analyze (Shudder… as much as she hates to do so…) what her feelings for Nny are, and Ian… Ian should die. I must think of good ways to murder Ian. Axe in the nuts? Massive choke-on-a-hoagie freak death? So many choices… wow, this chapter wasn't very funny either! What's going on? *gasps* Perhaps freeing Squee shall renew my comedic charm.

Please review, and perhaps I will write soon! And tell me, do you like Devi and Nny to get together? And how shall I torture Ian?


	8. Issue 8

**__**

Author's NOTE: PREPARE for the longest TORTURE SCENE in my entire writing career! Many of you will be disgusted, a few will actually hang yourselves by your mouse cord, but in the end, I will go to sleep knowing that someone out there is retching. I am making no sense. Just enjoy. Free the koalas!

****

Chapter 8, Part 1: You're Free, Squee!

Johnny couldn't believe his luck. The access card he'd filched off of Ian was some sort of membership card to a psychology book club. It wasn't even worth two cat's sneezes to Johnny, and he had given it to some bum on the street.

Now here he was, breaking in manually, just by bashing his fist in through the window. At least, he tried to do so, but he hadn't much more force to him than a bed sheet. He used a piece of the aluminum window ledge instead. The glass splintered instantly.

Johnny stopped, sniffing the air. Something reeked pretty awful, and he didn't even want to guess what it was. He had broken into the lab-test area of the mental hospital. It was pretty unusual to find himself breaking _in_ to a place like this. He knew there were a few doctors on night shifts, and that scared him a bit, but overall, he had a pretty tranquil, murderously-calm feeling to himself. It was a feeling as inky as the black night.

He moved his way through the room, avoiding stepping on the glass that he had scattered. It was pitch-black inside (the author loves this time of day most… mwa ha ha!). He leaned out into the hallway and saw immediately what the smell was.

A man was crouching by the water fountain, a trail of vomit leading from his collapsed body to a room. He had obviously been drugged and probed in some unusual experiments. Johnny tried to walk away but the man looked up and said, rather loudly: " It's the Canadians! They're building a fleet of killer fuzzy gerbils, and we're all going to die! Nice shoes."

" Uh…" Johnny backed up against the wall, reached into the slot in it (where the mail was pushed through) and pulled out the knives he had pushed in there. It was the only way to get them into the building without setting off any of the metal detectors that were put into the windows. This was a place where very little crime was allowed.

" The Earth is slowly spinning off its axis! It's going to plunge into the sun and we'll all melt!" The man shrieked. He clawed at his face. " My eyes! MY EYES! They'll shrink up into raisins and fall out my nose!"

" Hush!" Johnny hissed, raising his knives threateningly. " Someone will hear you!"

" Hear me! Oh, please, hear me out!" The man grabbed Johnny's knees and shook them.

Johnny almost buckled from the force exerted onto his kneecaps. He felt they'd crush inwards. He had once watched a weight-lifting show where a man's kneecap exploded on the 200-pound lift. Seeing it was the highlight of his day. He didn't want to witness it firsthand though. With a soft chop, sounding oddly like a knife going into a watermelon, the crazy man was dead.

" Completely unnecessary." Johnny whispered to himself. " But oddly satisfying." He turned into the nearest room and saw a woman, completely naked, with feces spread across her body. " Oh… uh… sorry." Johnny slipped back out of the room.

He walked down the hall, wondering where the Crazy-Little-Boy-Ward was. His feet didn't have to travel far, for just as he passed a room, he saw Squee inside, strapped to his bed with leather belts. His hands were clawing at the air, and he was whimpering: " Shmee! Where's my Shmee?"

" Squee?" Johnny pressed his face close to the glass.

Squee looked up. All he could see was a big, sickly-beige mush smashed against the window, a cloud forming where the mouth was, and the deadly glimmering eyes. " AHHH!" Squee shrieked, trying to rip himself upwards. Try as he might, he couldn't.

Johnny pulled back from the window-glass and opened the door slowly. He walked inside. " Did you miss me?"

" Squee!" Squee squeaked out spontaneously. Say that ten times fast.

" Look what I brought. I came prepared this time." Johnny took out his knives and spun them around his fingers. The blades whooshed through the air, shimmering happily, and then stopped midair, pointed right at Squee's face.

" Eep!" Little Todd whimpered. " Please don't hurt me, Scary Neighbor Man!"

" I won't hurt you. I'll take you home with me, _then_ hurt you." Johnny laughed maniacally. " Just kidding." He started to slice open the straps on Squee's stomach.

" Not my intestines!" Squee gasped. " The lady on the discovery channel said they're filled with bacteria buggy-buggies, and they're called E.Coli, and they'll come out and eat me!" He shivered.

" Don't squirm around." Johnny warned him. He had freed the straps on his stomach and was beginning on Squee's arms and legs. " How do you get yourself into these things? What have they been doing to you, anyway?"

" Mommy and Daddy just left." Squee said, finally.

" Those fuckers!" Johnny shrieked angrily, slamming the knife down just between Squee's knees. " Oh, sorry… heh! What if I hit just a centimeter to the right? You'd be filled with aganozing pain. Hee." Johnny undid the last strap. " What about the doctors?"

" They tried things." Squee said, finally. " Bad things."

" Bad things… along the line of…?" Johnny prompted.

" They took Shmee."

" Oh! Oh… no…" Johnny said, in a very insincere way. " Uh… anything else?"

" They put a thermometer where I go poopie."

" The toilet?" Johnny looked up from his knives, which he was putting away into their rightful place – the little holsters at his sides.

" M-my tushie." Squee turned red and began to cry a little.

Johnny began to laugh. " That's funny though! I'm sorry, but that's funny!"

Squee shook his head, sobbing.

" Shh!" Johnny said. " Big kids don't cry. If you're upset, stab something or yourself. Write an angst-ridden poem. Anything but cry."

" I'm not a big kid." Squee whimpered. " I want my Mommy and Daddy!"

" I'll take you to live with me. How's that?" Johnny offered.

" NO!" Squee gasped.

" It's not that bad. I cleaned out most of the bodies. It's pretty cozy, if you can find someplace to sit. Most of the furniture disintegrated from all the blood that sank in. I called the company to ask what to do if a severe amount of bloodshed damages my couch, but they won't return my calls." Johnny crossed his arms. " Hey, are you going to stop crying or do I have to put you in a potato bag and carry you out?"

" I'll go." Squee said. " My name's Todd."

" You're Squee." Johnny replied harshly. " Todd's… damn, that's the name of the football captain at my high school. The one that called me fag first." Suddenly, there was a flash of recognition cross Johnny's face. Another memory, and so quickly this time. " Yep…" Johnny whispered finally. " May he rot in pieces." He gave a murky laugh.

Squee looked sad. " I don't want to go live with you."

" I'm telling you, Squee. I'll treat you much better than you're being treated here. You'll get to eat… sometimes… well, occasionally. Aw, fuck, I'll have to go to the store more often, won't I?" Johnny looked at his hands with a bit of a worried expression. " I hate the sunlight." He muttered. " They really ought to put a visor around that thing."

" Doctor Ian was the worst." Squee said. " He was a meanie-mean guy. His breath smelled like dookie."

" Ian…?" Johnny's nostrils flared in recognition. " What did he do?"

" He would hit me. If I didn't wanna do stuff." Squee whimpered out. He lifted up his hand, which was covered in cuts, bruises, and boo-boos. " He said he'd explode my brain. And he gave me all these apples to eat, but they looked like huge, shriveled brown prunes, and he'd make me eat them, and…"

" Ugh." Johnny whispered in pure disgust. " Suddenly I feel like retching. Excuse me." He stood, taking in two deep breaths of air. He could feel a dizzy feeling circulate towards his mind. He breathed so quickly and erratically that it was pretty refreshing to take a good, deep breath.

" There's something bad about Ian. I heard him saying some stuff to the other doctors." Squee looked down at his feet shyly. " He said… he said he cleaned out his girlfriend's house, and instead of throw out her paintings, he sold them. And he got rich. And he keeps taking her money." Squee began to cry again. " I wanna go home… not _your_ home!"

" Follow me." Johnny said.

Squee nodded but looked at Johnny expectantly.

" What? You want me to hold your hand?" Johnny muttered, exasperated. " Here, hold this." He gave Squee a little wooden plank. " Children. Honestly." Johnny moved down the hallway, Squee trotting behind him.

" I'll kill him." Johnny said loudly.

" Who?" Squee asked nervously. " ME?"

" No. Ian."

" NO! Not because I said!" Squee cried out. " You can't! That would mean I sort of killed him, and Shmee says that if I kill anyone I'll have to live with Pepito, and Pepito's dad keeps spitting nachos at me when he talks, because he talks with his mouth full, and…"

" Shh!" Johnny grumbled. " You never talked to me before. What's with the motor mouth now?"

" Nobody talks to me. They took Shmee away. I can hear him cry at night." Squee confided.

" God." Johnny said. " You want me to get him, right? Where is he?"

" In Ian's office." Squee told him. " But don't go there! _He_ is in there! And sometimes he has scary ladies in there with him, and they get drunk and he pays them and they sit on him sometimes or he sits on them and they hurt each other. I can hear them moaning and stuff." Squee shivered. " It's really scary."

Johnny was getting increasingly furious. " That money-grabbing, whore-banging little _FUCK!_" He shouted at Squee.

Squee's eyes widened into what had to be the size of dinner plates.

" Listen, Squee. Remember that bad man in the alley?"

" Ian says I should forget my bad memories." Squee whispered.

" Ian can shove bean curd up his ass!" Johnny spat. " Just remember what I said? Some people are just machines. Poorly wired, irresponsible machines. They should just… I don't know… be tied up and thrown in cages. Ungrateful bastards." He straightened up and said: " I'm going into Ian's office."

" Don't hurt him!" Squee cried out. " He knows how to find my Mommy and Daddy!"

" I know. But do they _want_ to be found, Squee?" Johnny said, sagely. He looked down at the velcro fastenings on Squee's shoes and added: " Neat. I remember when I wore those as a kid. Mine had monkeys on them. I like monkeys."

Squee blinked.

Johnny almost reached out and patted his head, but in the last minute he shrank away and disappeared into Dr. Ian's office. Inside, he stood, like an awkward nightly intruder in a huge mansion, looking around and trying to figure out what to do. There he was – Ian, asleep at his desk.

Johnny lifted his knives, wondering just how to kill him. Perhaps he should only severely damage his internal organs, and then hang him up by his own intestines to let him drip dry of all the slimy foulness he held.

" Dr. Ian, special delivery in-patient for you!" Johnny shouted, and with a huge smack in the head, Ian was jolted out of his sleep.

" Whuu---huh?" Ian blinked wide-eyed. He glanced up at Johnny and exclaimed: " Who are you?"

" Surely you have heard of me." Johnny replied darkly. He lifted a single rose from his coat pocket, twirling it around in the air, and he recited: " I am all you don't know and all you fear, all you avoid, here to take all you hold dear." He turned to Ian, his grin growing huge, his eyes catching the light and glowing a sickly orange, like a cat's. " Devi must have told you about me."

" Johnny?" Ian exclaimed. " I… I was _sure_ you were gone! DEAD!"

" Perhaps you can't see me by this light." Johnny kicked Ian off the chair and towards the huge rectangle of light that was spread out across the floor by the window. " Maybe you recall seeing me around." Johnny walked into the pale moonlight, his face illuminated.

" You - - the guy from the restaurant." Ian said. " What do you want from me?"

" You've hurt a friend of mine. Two friends of mine, really. And I have very few friends, so I hold what I have dearly." Johnny said. "DEARLY, you hear me?" Johnny slammed the knife down and right through Ian's hand. It was pinned to the floor.

" Oh! Christ!" Ian sobbed.

" You may bellow out to any deities at this point." Johnny informed him.

" You're crazy. What friends are you talking about?"

" Well, other than the fact that a majority of my comic-book readers have ended up in here…" Johnny said (right next to the Jhonen Vasquez fans – Author Sez), "… Devi. You've hurt her. And you've hurt Squee."

" I don't know any Squee's."

" You call him by the name Todd Casil." Johnny said.

" Todd belongs in here." Ian said. " He's a very unstable boy. Extremely traumatized."

" And I'm sure shoving a thermometer up his ass was story-book time for him?" Johnny pressed his knee into Ian's stomach. " As much as I hate to soil my pants with your flaky skin filth…" He paused. " I think I'd hate to soil my pants, period. Well, besides my own self-reflections on such things, I think that you must die. Please take this very personally." Johnny took out some nails and hammered one into Ian's foot.

" I didn't hurt Devi!" Ian shouted. " I did _nothing_ to hurt her!"

**Author Sez: **I am filled with brutal rage at this moment. It involves somebody that said something to me someplace, and if you know anything of it, you must die. I must walk away now (or at least metaphorically in my head) and vent for a few seconds…. Ah. Better. I can now continue.

" Oh, but you did." Johnny said. " You fed her with poisonous lies. You convinced her I was gone. You gave her a euphoric feeling of safety and detachment, then you fed off of her instability by using her financially!"

" You sound like a psychologist." Ian whispered in a moment of self-mocking. You see, there is a time in every psychologist's life where they realize that they are complete and utter looneys. Horrible self-mutilation ensues.

" Really? I can multi-task too. Observe." Johnny took out another nail. " See? As I nail your kneecaps together, I can speak hateful words to you at the same time. It's really a time-saver for us tragic souls."

**Pause for Manic Cackle.**

Ian shook his head. " Devi was happy with me. Happier than you can ever make her. She won't even allow herself to be with you. You're a lunatic!"

" Devi was not happy with you." Johnny insisted. " She was fueled by fake promises and a charade of falseness, beneath which, when scraped away evenly, you'd find pure and utter desolation. There was no love."

" But we did it!" Ian persisted.

" That's not love!" Johnny exploded, and a few nails found their way into Ian's upper biceps.

Ian gasped in horror at the pain.

**Pause for Applause.**

" Love is a shattering feeling." Johnny said. " Have you never sampled any decent literature? Your psychology books deceive you. It is not a debacle that comes after five stages of so-called relationship building. It's a primitive instinct, a lust-driven fury, a maddening spirit… You'll feel a pinch now, this will skim right by your spine…"

" What do you know of love?" Ian hissed. " You know nothing."

" I know what hate is, and love is the same thing. Love is hate but manifested in a different way. I learned to despise and regret many things, and they have manifested themselves into a love like no other. Unrequited love." Johnny sighed. " And I deny it, I despise myself more for having such feelings. But feelings, then, are hate as well, so even if I stopped loving I'd still have my hate, and then what do I do? I have nothing to expand my feelings on. Love is hate to me."

" You sicken me." Ian told him.

**Pause for the pause.**

" Oh, no… I am already sickened by much of this world. I am sickened by myself and by you, by Devi and by Squee. And yet it makes it somewhat endearing, to let such pure and utter maliciousness fester into a protectiveness." Johnny sighed. " Well, you are now paralyzed waist down. I didn't mean to drive it in that far. I suppose all the better for you…" He took out his knives. " I wonder if you'd enjoy being beaten to death with your own arm?"

" Please… please, let me go!" Ian begged.

" And yet minutes ago you cursed me into the blue moon." Johnny cackled. " Oh, the emotions I draw from you. Emotions are such guilt-heavy things. I bet that you regret your anger now. No mere repentance will help you in this situation. Oh, no…" Johnny nailed a row of nails in the shape of a skull into Ian's upper thighs.

" Why can't you just kill me?" Ian sobbed. " It hurts!"

" That is all the pleasure of torture, then, isn't it?" Johnny smiled grimly. " I enjoy this just a tad more than you do, though. I know that later Devi will try to move away even farther from me. No matter, I will find other ways to prove that I can change."

" You can't change. It's part of you, like a DNA code." Ian said. " You'll end up killing her. You'll probably be doing her one minute and choking her the next."

" How dare you suggest such - - such _things_?" Johnny threw his knife into the palm of Ian's other hand. " As if physicality is something I desire! Hah!"

" I'm sorry - - I'm…" Ian was near passing out from the rushes of pain.

" Would it be more European if I leave you like this, hopefully draining of blood by morning? I have no use for the blood, so no use to keep guard." Johnny looked around. " You might try to get away though, and hobble, filled with holes, towards the phone. That's always a worry. I might have to cut the phone lines…"

" Just kill me then!" Ian begged. " PLEASE!"

" Oh, alright." Johnny grinned. " I won't argue against killing you." And with one final swipe of a knife, Ian was dead.

****

Author Sez: Possibly the longest, most excruciating torture scene I've ever written. Joy is pulsating through me. Really, it is. 

o-o-o

****

Chapter 8, Part 2: Devi's Reaction

" DEVI! Turn on the T.V.!" Tenna shouted in a frantic voice. Tenna rarely spazzed out this badly.

Devi was actually asleep, something she did very, very rarely. " What happened?" Devi mumbled. " A meteor crashed on Earth and killed everyone but us? That would be pretty weird…"

" No, worse." Tenna dragged her out of bed and plopped her in front of the TV. " Five o'clock morning news, girl. Watch."

Reporter Dippy Schitz was saying: " In another horrific murder scene, Dr. Ian Stabin was found nailed to the floor of his office. It was, as Police Man Doe NutLuffer explained, 'a very wacky tragedy'."

" Oh, God!" Devi screamed. " IAN!" She kept screaming nonsensical words for a few minutes, then burst into tears. She hadn't cried for a while, but now she just felt absolutely wasted of emotions. "I know who did it. It had to be – oh Sweet Jeezus!" They were showing clips of the murder scene on TV, bloody entrails hanging out and all.

" Jesus? What?" Tenna squinted at her.

" No! Don't get all it-was-religious-fate at me now, Tenna! It was Nny!"

" Nny… he wouldn't do something like this. I mean, he likes you, but Jeez, girl…"

" He would." Devi whimpered. " I am _never_ going outside again. Why did he do that?"

" Maybe he had some weird reason." Tenna said. " Or maybe he was just mad that you chose Ian over him."

Reporter Dippy Schitz continued: " There is also a little boy missing from the mental hospital. Some connections are being made whether this psychotic little boy had turned into a mini-homicidal-maniac. It's too soon to tell. Join us next time at – Dippy "Bull" Schitz, Where You Get Your Daily Bull!"

Tenna turned off the TV. " Well…."

" You get the mail from now on. You… you check it. Make sure there's no bombs or some freaky stuff. I will _not _let Johnny contact me again." Devi sighed. " I tried living a normal life, but noooo…."

Tenna shook her head. " I guess you're becoming a hermit again, then?"

" Maybe I'll just kill myself." Devi mumbled.

" Don't do anything stupid." Tenna warned.

" Sometimes existence is so meaningless." Devi said, finally.

o-o-o

****

Author's Note: I've gotten a LOT of emails from people asking what I look like. Er….. it was pretty weird to just explain myself verbally so now I have a photo. Warning! In this, my skin glows sickly yellow. Most of the light I get is from the computer screen, after all… http://image1ex.villagephotos.com/1467104.jpg So yeah, you can see a photo of me, if you are ready to be horrified at my sickly-appearance. If you flame me for my photo, please eat shit and die, you meathead. You're being a complete and stereotypical bully.


	9. Issue 9

****

Author's Note: You will be probably caught very off guard by the ending of this chapter. You will revel in the delicious spookiness of what happens. My own powers of mind control and hypnotism will awaken through this drama-filled, less-funny chapter, and force you to send me all your money and credit cards. Stare deep into this small annoying font to become a mindless drone. Yes… that's it… keep reading… Mwa ha ha!

****

Chapter 9, Part 1: Welcome Home (sort of!), Squee!

Johnny glanced around his home with a sort of eerie fondness. He turned and gave Squee a spooky grin. " So, how did you sleep?"

Squee had been given a bed inside an old Christmas tree box, which Johnny tended to prefer when it came to disposing of people's bodies. Squee had, in fact, had an awful night. There was a huge crowd of ants in the box, but he killed one by accident and all the others rushed off for its funeral.

" It was okay." Squee lied. Johnny did go to some nice lengths to find an old rag for Squee to sleep on. " How about you?" Squee asked nervously, as it was the polite thing to do.

" I don't sleep. Waste of time, really." Johnny stood up and stretched. " I bet you're hungry. I can heat up some chicken noodle soup."

Squee's stomach grumbled in delight. " My mommy just made me lick up the jam spills when she was making sandwiches for work."

Johnny frowned at the thought. " You won't be licking anything off the floor here, okay?"

Squee looked down at the teddy bear in his hands. " Why'd you get Shmee for me?"

" I guess I didn't want you to be unhappy." Johnny replied. " Maybe it's time to make someone feel happy thanks to me, right?"

Squee blinked.

" Of course." Johnny snapped his fingers. " Maybe if I just do something towards Devi's favor, she'll…" He paused. " Damn it! What could be any more favorable than to save her life? And that obviously didn't do it."

Squee stared at him as Johnny paced back and forth.

" _They can't get to me_." Johnny chanted to himself softly, and then turned to Squee. " No, the voices are _not_ going to be included in this brainstorming session."

" Oh." Squee whimpered, huddling into the corner of the room fearfully.

" Squee, what would you do? If you had someone hate you so much, and you've already tried everything you could to make them love you, or at least feel for you – something, anything – what would you do?" Johnny grinned brightly at the little boy.

" That's like Mommy and Daddy." Squee replied. " And nothing worked on them. They'll always hate me." His chin quivered.

" So I guess we have stuff in common, huh?" Johnny looked sad. They both stared at each other in an odd, melodramatic moment. " So… I guess I'll turn on the TV and see if the cops figured anything out." Johnny offered.

Squee looked worried. " Aren't you going to do what you said?"

" Turn on the TV. Yes. Perhaps that is why I just picked up the remote?" Johnny replied sarcastically.

" Make me some soup." Squee prompted.

" Didn't you cook on your own?" Johnny looked puzzled. " I can't recall whether anyone made me food when I was little. I don't really even remember being Squee-aged."

Squee looked really nervous. " I… I can make it. _Eep!_"

" Oh, no. You'll set yourself on fire or something. The stove does that. I lost a few shirts that way." Johnny nodded to himself. " Yeah, that's what we'll do then. I turn on the TV, real loud, and then go make food. You watch and tell me what's going on."

Johnny walked out. Squee stared at Channel 3 News.

Reporter Ernmor Denyou was talking. (Get it? Earn More Than You? Ahh… you people!). "There is more suspicion as we noticed a man stabbed on the way to a broken window. It seems that a little boy has broken out of the hospital, killed his own benefactor and doctor, and then broken out the window, stabbing another patient along the way. Research shows that there are no fingerprints available."

" I always wear gloves." Johnny said loudly from the kitchen. You could hear the stove range click on.

Squee's hair raised nervously. " I'm a bad guy!"

Johnny laughed grimly. " You like to have noodles in yours? This thing's worse than Ramen… there's nothing in here."

Squee buried his face in his hands, shivering in fear. " Pepito's Dad will come get me!" He whimpered repeatedly.

" Who's this Pepito?" Johnny asked. Pepito is, as you may all know, a very popular name for the little boy in all the Mexican jokes. Johnny was prepared to hear a funny little story, which would have certainly done him good.

" He's the devil!" Squee gasped out. " His house has the thing that isn't heaven in it!" Squee preferred not to swear. " And – and – and – toasty souls of the dead!"

Johnny coughed uncomfortably. " Uh… is that so?"

" He came to my class and blew up everyone's heads but me!" Squee continued, waving his hands in the air frantically. " Mommy called me a liar when I told her. But it's the _truth_! I saw it with my own eyes! And then I dreamed that buggy-buggies crawled out of the heads of all the dead kids and they wanted to eat me!"

Johnny laughed. " I had head-explody once. Oh man…" His eyes shone with recollection. He scooped some soup out of the pan with a ladle. " The carrots look the same as the peas – gray – since the can was a bit old. Some bum gave it to me in exchange for a Noodle Boy comic."

Squee stared at the television as it flashed to a scene with Devi on it. The Reporter continued: "Here we meet up with a young girl who says she's been the girlfriend of the psychologist – now passed away – Ian."

Devi's trembling voice replied: " I'm not going to jump to _any_ conclusions just yet - - okay, Nny? - - but I hope you hear this and realize that you're a _freak_! A FREAK!"

Johnny sighed melodramatically in the kitchen. " Squee, sounds like we have explaining to do."

Squee shuddered. " _We_?"

" Well, I don't think it's advisable for me to try to contact Devi." Johnny said.

" Devi? The girl on T.V.?" Squee asked.

" Yeah." Johnny brought Squee a bowl of soup. " Now, listen, she's really a nice girl. She wouldn't turn away a little boy from her doorstep, okay?"

" Can I go live with her?" Squee exclaimed.

" Maybe." Johnny said. " If you do this right, and she likes you, and she likes me again, then maybe you can."

Squee realized how hopeless it would be for Devi to like Johnny. He nodded anyway, being the already emotionally-worn boy he was; he was used to being the puppet of warped minds. " What am I supposed to do?" Squee asked softly.

" You have to go to her and explain to her about Ian. Explain what he did to you." Johnny said. "And how I saved you twice… maybe add some other stuff, take the blame for the stabbed crazy in the hallway. Fill it with good praise of me and all that."

" B-b-but…" Squee's chin quivered. " Wouldn't I be lying?"

" No." Johnny replied. " You'll just be casting a very positive light on me."

" But that wouldn't be you." Squee said.

Johnny thought about it. " How would you know, Squee?" Johnny asked. " If I never knew who I was, and I had so many voices in me that I couldn't discern a true one from the false ones, then how would I know which one's me and which one isn't?"

Squee shrugged and began to eat his soup. " Please don't hurt me." Squee whimpered into the bowl. " I'll talk to the lady if you want, but I won't lie. I'll tell what you did."

Johnny nodded. " But mention that Ian stole his girlfriend's paintings. Remember to mention that. _Emphasize _it, you hear me?"

" Okay." Squee sighed.

" There's a good kid." Johnny replied, reclining against the wall. " If you're quiet enough and can clean up after yourself, maybe I can get used to you. Obviously you'll sort of hold me back. I couldn't possibly bring home all the screaming, bloody victims if a little boy was here. Maybe just the occasional irritant…"

Squee suddenly didn't feel hungry any more.

Johnny's laughter echoed off the walls of house 777, beneath the pale eggshell blue sky.

o-o-o

****

Meanwhile… Ian's Funeral

o-o-o

The priest cleared his throat and began to read some prayer thing over the fresh grave of Ian, prospectful psychologist, respected friend, and good boyfriend. Devi couldn't believe that she'd assisted in Ian's death. She stood there, wringing the funeral booklet until it was just a soggy rag in her hands, her fingers cold and trembling.

Just as they began to throw rose petals on the grave, Devi blurted out: " Wait!"

Ian's mother gave her an angry look.

Devi looked around. Everybody was giving her a strange look.

" I… I want to say something. If it's alright." Devi said.

Ian's mother nodded her approval.

Devi began: " Ian, he… he was so smart, such a brilliant man, and he saw just about as many movies as I have in my lifetime. He and I had a lot of common ground, but beneath all that, we were horribly, horribly different. I didn't truly appreciate him for all he was, while he worshipped everything my hands touched. Especially his extra-tender handling of my paintings as I told him to clear them out of my room. Even though they were heading for the trash heap, he handled them as if they were gorgeous Rembrandts. I think that's what makes him such a great man – everything was something wonderful, everyone was a private little discovery."

Everyone clapped.

Devi let her withered bouquet of flowers fall on the grave. She turned away, her face pale, her lips trembling. Once again, Johnny was on her mind. " Damn it." She whimpered at the graying sky, addressing it as if it were Johnny. " You ruined everything in my life. Repeatedly. And when I was so sick of life that I would have willingly died, you saved me. Just to make me live on in misery. You're a fuckhead, a real fuckhead."

She looked up and realized that everyone was listening still, thinking it was some addition to her previous speech. Ian's mother fainted.

" Uh… I was just talking to myself, that's all!" Devi tried, lamely.

" Get away, you treacherous wench! I knew you were a bad influence on my son! You were the death of him!" Ian's father shrieked at her.

They began to pelt her with funeral booklets. Trust me, those little motherfuckers have sharp edges. Devi dodged them as she ran, blindly, into the freshly-falling rain, the mud splattering her clothing. Hurt, degraded, and devoid of any joy, she hoped to run home and kill herself. Perhaps death was the ultimate defeat – but it was no longer a dead-end to her, but simply a gateway out of the current hell and into the next one.

****

o-o-o

Chapter 9, Part 2: Squee's Turn!

o-o-o

Squee huddled into the doorway of Devi's apartment, cold in the too-large shirt Johnny offered him. He looked and saw the girl from TV – tall, thin, and very depressed-looking – stalk towards the door. She stopped dead and stared at Squee. " Uh… wrong house." She said, wearily.

Squee blinked sadly.

" That means move, little boy." Devi reached out and propped herself up against the doorway herself. She could feel the tears again, pressing against her eyelids, threatening to poke out like dangerous little daggers, to give her away as the cowardly scared little girl she was inside.

" I wanna talk to you." Squee began, finally, pulling on the old small-boy charm. It always worked on women. " Please?" He held out his little hand, all five fingers extended nicely.

" I…" Devi felt her voice catch in her throat. There was no way she could just push away this small child. Perhaps she was tired and angry with herself, but she didn't hate the world. Not as much as Johnny did. She wouldn't hurt anyone just out of her own deliberate hatred; she would need a very good reason. Something along the lines of self-defense; defending others; something heroic, maybe.

She took the little boy's hand and took him inside, leaving the door open so that either of them could turn and run if the time arrives. Squee took a deep breath and said: " I knew your boyfriend… ma'am."

Devi felt so old. She was only 23, but being called ma'am added a good twenty more years to her character. Yet she let it slide just because it took her aback to receive some beyond-the-grave news about her boyfriend.

" H-how do you know Ian?" Devi asked, lifting a coffee mug to her lips. The coffee mug had some very shaky, incredibly messy and jumpy letters on it, and it said: " If you can make these letters out, you've had enough coffee". Devi stopped, realizing her coffee mug was empty inside. It was simply a psychotic little instinct. (Oh, I know thee well, coffee instinct).

" He was my doctor." Squee said. " Sort of."

" Oh?" Devi looked a bit scared. She looked down at her ruffled skirt, trying to figure out whether she should be talking to a mentally ill kindergartner or not.

" Ian wasn't a really good doctor. He was sort of mean." Squee sat down on the chair. " My mommy and daddy - - uh - - they sort of left me at the psycho ward, because they didn't want me."

" That's awful!" Devi blanched. " What's this about Ian being a bad doctor?"

" He didn't really care about the feelings of people." Squee replied. " I have a history with anal probes now…" Squee whimpered.

Devi shivered in fear. " That's horrible!"

" And… and he had a girlfriend. I heard him tell his coworkers about her." Squee bit his lower lip nervously. " As he was strapping me onto a table so that I could be all alone for hours, thinking about Satan and how much I hate everyone, that is."

Devi was getting oddly intrigued. " What did he say about me?"

" He said that his lady-friend – you – was a painter." Squee thought hard. " He said he was cleaning out your place and he took all your paintings and he sold them. But he told you he was going to drive them to the dump. And then he got himself that really big sports car."

Devi banged the coffee cup down on the table, rattling the silverware that stood on it. " No way!" Devi spat. " There's - - no! That can't be!" She jumped to her feet. " You mean that Ian screwed me over? Just like every other guy in my life, he fucked with my head too? What is this?" She grabbed Squee and screamed into his face: " Does it say USE ME on my forehead? HUH? DOES IT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

Squee blinked nervously. " Uh… no, ma'am…" He was sweating profusely, and trying to hold back his urine, for his bladder was ready to release out of fear at any given moment. " Can I just finish so I can go?"

" Go ahead." Devi whispered dryly.

" And he would always bring ladies into his office." Squee continued, blushing. " And he had so many of them. And they'd leave with their skirts flipped up and smelling like my Mommy after she had her Whiny-Cans." (Aww! He can't pronounce Heineken!)

Devi was getting more and more angry. She no longer wished to drag a steak knife across her wrists. Suddenly she was filled with utter and blinding rage, but above that, she was just severely disappointed. She wanted to curl up into a little ball and disappear. " I can't believe this." She told Squee. "Tell me more… just tell me now, before I go insane."

Squee looked worried. " Um… I have stuff to say about Mr. Nny-Evil-Neighbor-Colt-Sir."

" Colt. So that's what his last name is." Devi said to herself in a lackluster voice. She had filed police reports before, but the cops didn't even believe her story, since she couldn't even tell her boyfriend's name. Now she could sense the bitterness in the air, the way reality laughed in her face again.

" Nny, he…" Squee took a deep breath to keep his voice steady. " He came to save me. He was always my neighbor and stuff, and he'd sort of protect me in his own weird way. Like the evil bad man from the mall that took me into the alley. He sort of…" Squee did a hand-motion, a scooping-brains out of a head sort of motion with his hand. It was something too awful for a small boy to explain, that's for sure.

Devi remembered the police coverage of the event. They had never seen someone mangle a human brain quite like Nny had done. " Continue?" She breathed out.

" So then when he found out that Ian was so horrible to you, and he really likes you, by the way…" Squee added, in a horribly mundane voice, seeing as how it was Johnny's robot-like invisible arm commanding him to say this. " … well, he came and broke me out of there. And he got me back my teddy bear Shmee too." Squee lifted the teddy bear, which had so far been tucked under the gigantic shirt he was wearing. The shirt currently said _I Am Not Naked_. It morphed from time to time, just as all of Nny's shirts tended to do.

" And then he killed Ian?" Devi seethed. " Shit! I would have killed Ian too! Oh, God, I can't believe I'm saying this! Sweet angry Jeezus, I'm losing it!" She paced, tearing at her hair nervously. " And then he just killed Ian. But now, if I was him, I'd have probably done the same thing. And he saves toddler's lives. How about that?" She laughed nervously. " Heh! Hah ha he ha hah!"

" Uh…" Squee took a step towards the doorway. " I don't think I wanna live with you anymore."

Devi's face was covered by her hands, but when she lowered them, Squee could see that she was in tears. " And I actually thought I loved Ian. That bastard…" She shook her head and looked at Squee. "Nny sent you, dind't he?"

Squee nodded, his eyes wide. " Please don't sue me, lady-man-ma'am-sir!" He was trying every combination of polite talk that he could muster. " Please don't hurt me! I didn't do anything, I promise!"

" No, of course not." Devi sighed. " Johnny did everything, didn't he? And no matter what happens in my life, it always comes back to Johnny, doesn't it?"

" Um…" Squee was already wavering outside the door, ready to run for his life.

" Who knows? Maybe I'm going crazy, because suddenly I know how he feels." Devi said hollowly. " Just so screwed over by everyone around you until you don't know what's what. And then all these emotions flood over you, first affection, and then pity, and then full-out rage! Oh! And there's so many voices suddenly in me. Suddenly I want to kill myself, but I want to kill others in another part of me, and some parts of me just want to hide myself away like a hermit."

Squee's chin quivered. " So what do I say to Nny?"

" Tell him that I understand." Devi whispered. " Tell him that I must have crossed over the hill and into his little world again, because I completely and utterly understand all of a sudden." She laughed bitterly to herself. " Doesn't that beat all? Suddenly the only person that I feel I truly understand, the motives of whom I truly can understand, is Nny."

Squee nodded finally. " Okay. You're really, really scary. And your apartment smells really weird, like really old coffee stains. Daddy made me lick those off his ties when I was hungry sometimes." Squee looked around the apartment sadly and then ran.

Devi watched the little kid go. Then she lowered her head down on the table, pushed aside her coffee mug, and stared at the painting she set down beside the garbage can. The painting of the cliff, beneath which was the void of insanity, and there she was in it, teetering like a gorgeous damsel in distress above it. And, surprisingly enough, Nny in the background, experiencing it with her, but as a shadow of her, almost as if he'd gone through this before and was simply helping walk her through it as well.

And, in that blink of sudden and awesome pain and trauma, she lost her memory. Not all of it, but large segments of it. Her childhood became a blur, as if she were looking back at it through wax paper, just the smell of diapers or warm milk here and there. Her adolescence was replaced with bitter, carnal anger inside her. And then her adulthood – the only thing she could truly remember was Johnny, and that her intense, painful motivations – but not what caused them. But the anger, the voices she suddenly felt, they were all inside her.

And the painting at the wall suddenly changed, like something out of a science-fiction movie. Suddenly, Devi was engulfed in the dark void at the base of the cliff, Nny holding her protectively, both across some invisible fine line. And the only thing Devi could think of was that there was only one person that understood her.

That was the only memory that lingered to her.

It was Johnny.

Author's Note: OOH! Spooky! The same thing that happened to Johnny – the same symptoms – all evil primitive feelings, but none of that memory left – it's all being manifested in Devi! And of course, this is just another very intriguing chapter of weirdness and suspense… next chapter is quite possibly the end, with Devi seeking Johnny out. Ooh! Aren't you filled with fear at Devi's own mental malady? I always knew that somehow she'd end up just like Nny… so screwed over that she just blanked out. I heard of people who have had such awful experiences that they forgot everything completely. I am glad it is manifested in this story. 


	10. Issue 10! END!

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Chapter 10, Part 1: Who Am I?

Devi stopped the car in front of Johnny's house. She could feel it, some evil force pulling her into the building, telling her that this is what she must do. She drummed her fingers on her steering wheel nervously. She couldn't remember what told her to drive here in the first place. She sat there. " Wait. What the fuck am I doing here?"

She glanced out the car window at Johnny's house. She remembered it vaguely, but she couldn't quite put her finger on whose house it was. Instead, there was just some hollow memory inside of her that couldn't quite connect to her brain.

" My house?" She thought nervously. " I can't believe this. Have I gone absolutely senile? I can't even remember my name…" She did remember a delicious fury inside of her though.

Devi thought hard. There was a lot of fog settled on her mind, a thin blanket of lost images, words, and names. She tried to sort of the shattered pieces of her memory but she was coming up empty-handed. She knew everything, she could talk, obviously she could think, so she hadn't gone insane. She simply had lost her memory.

" People who are severely traumatized lose their memory." Devi whispered to herself. " Yes, only people who go through something _really,_ really bad. So whatever happened to me, I'm fucked up over it." She looked over herself. She doubted rape – her clothing was on nice and neat.

" Well, I stopped in front of this house." Devi thought. " Instinct, maybe? Is it my house, or where I was going? Somebody in there would have to know."

She walked up the lawn and knocked on the door. She saw that 'You Can Still Escape' was painted on it. " Freaky." She muttered, and waited for someone to open the door.

Finally, the door swung open. A guy just her height was standing there. He looked ill, to put it gently. His skin, above all, was some sort of gruesome yellowish-beige, like the skin of those who sit in front of a computer screen all day. His eyes had dark circles around them, his hair was a bit of a mess. There were traces of someone who could be handsome if he took better of himself.

" Devi?" He asked, darkly.

_So my name is Devi_, Devi thought finally. " Uh… yeah. The strangest thing happened, and if you could cooperate…"

" So did you talk to Squee? I sent him to talk to you."

" Oh…" Devi thought hard. She couldn't recollect anything. The last thing she remembered was sitting at a kitchen table, staring at a painting. Then, there was a weird whirl to her memory, smudged beyond repair, and then her next memory was pulling up in front of this man's house. " … Yes, I suppose I did." Devi rationalized, _maybe what this Squee told me made me go insane?_

The man stood in the doorway, staring at her, his eyebrows raised. " So you forgive me?"

Devi was taken aback. So Squee was a messenger – he brought an apology to her. She couldn't remember anything though. It was like being reincarnated into the body of a total stranger. Devi didn't know what to forgive this man for. What could he have done, though? He was just about her height, thin, ill-looking, and dressed very Goth. There was absolutely nothing dangerous to him. He stood in the doorway, slouched and looking piteously sad.

" Yes." Devi said. " I forgive you."

His face brightened, then a look of suspicion crossed it. " Wait. Something's not right here. It's not like you."

A little boy snaked his way from behind the man's legs. " Johnny? Did she come back?" The little boy asked.

Johnny nodded. " Squee, what did you _say_ to her? She looks brainwashed!"

Devi was getting uncomfortable. So this Squee could have been Johnny's son. Was she married to Johnny? Was this their child? Did they have a lover's quarrel? Did Johnny send their child to apologize to her, the mother? Was she some sort of horrible bitch, leaving her child with her ill husband like this?

" Johnny, you have to help me. This is going to be very weird to explain, but…" Devi felt it again – a surge of anger and pain inside of her. She was furiously angry about something, this she could remember. She clenched her teeth and continued: " … I lost my memory. I… I don't know what I'm doing here. I can't remember anything."

" What?" Johnny looked uncomfortable. " God, this is absolutely crazy."

" I know." Devi laughed nervously. " The thing is, I can't remember a _thing_. The only memory I have is just me stopping in front of your house. So I guess you'll have to clue me in."

Johnny blanched. " Oh, but in your ignorance you're happy. I haven't seen you smile for so long." He sighed thoughtfully.

Devi continued: " The… the only thing I can think of is… is a need for revenge. I feel this murderous rage in me, you know? This is just crazy. I can't believe this…"

" Oh… uh… revenge." Johnny looked nervous all of a sudden. " No, I have no idea what could have… yeah." He looked over his shoulder into the house. " You know what? Uh… here, I'll write down your address for you. You go home and relax."

" So we don't live together." Devi felt oddly saddened. There was something drawing her to Johnny. She could remember him, though she didn't quite know why. Johnny just seemed like a kindred spirit. Possibly someone she loved in the past?

" No! Of course not!" Johnny exclaimed. " Damn, you're really out of it." He finished scribbling an address down and handed it to her. " You go home, okay? Take some medicine. I don't know."

Devi nodded and went to her car, feeling dizzy. She turned it on and then looked at the address on the paper she received from Johnny. She remembered the street name. She also recalled how to get there. Yet she couldn't recall ever living there.

She started her car and drove away.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Ten, Part 2: What To Do?

o-o-o

" She's lost it!" Johnny raved. " Oh, this is both blessed and terrible news!"

Squee stared at him blankly.

" She's looking for _revenge_. Don't you get it, Squee? If she remembers, she's going to want to kill me!" Johnny looked oddly satisfied. " Just like that, we're enemies."

" Maybe she wants revenge against Ian." Squee offered.

" Oh, yeah, okay." Johnny muttered sarcastically. "_ There's_ an idea. What I did to her was worse. Much worse."

" Sorry." Squee whimpered. " I was just trying to help a little."

" But!" Johnny grinned devilishly, ignoring Squee. " There _is_ a way to make her be on my side. Simply, I just choose to make her believe that I'm her friend. And I am. I love her. I really do." He paced the room. " I'll explain that she wants revenge on society, on how everyone she's ever known screwed her over. I'll make her want to stand by my side, be my Queen of Evil."

" Nny, that's _bad_! You'd be lying to her!" Squee shouted.

" I'll tell her, of course, that I tried to kill her. I won't hide that. I'll explain to her about her boyfriend. But I'll leave some stuff out. You know, twist it even more to my favor." Johnny said. " I'll give her a taste of her past, but I can't let her know much."

" Oh." Squee looked downcast. " But why can't you just help her back to normal?"

" Then I'd lose her forever." Johnny said. " This is my last chance to make her be _mine_!"

Squee shivered. " You shouldn't lie to her."

" I won't. I'll be selectively truthful." Johnny laughed to himself. " Yes, I'll explain the past to her. But I'll make her want revenge on others. Expulse her fury on those that drove her to her mental corruption. Yes, she'd be just like me. She can even be the next flusher."

" Flusher?" Squee whispered. " Like the one on the toilet?"

" No, no!" Johnny exclaimed. " Someone who's here only to get rid of assholes. Sort of nature's way to even the tides. And she's the next one, and what better way can she be about it than from an ex-flusher?"

Squee didn't seem to understand, but he nodded anyway.

" And you, Squee." Johnny sighed. " You'll be holding us back. Yes, chances are, you'll _really_ hold us back at times. But we'll manage, you know? You'll get used to us. We'll be good to you. Who knows, you're probably destined to be a flusher anyway. What with your childhood and all."

Squee felt the hairs on his neck rise in fear. " I don't want to be one, though!"

Johnny grinned. " Ah, but its fate. This is all coming together marvelously." He paced frantically. " Yes, I can see it now. Devi and I, both fed up with society, killing brutally, happy together. And to think that a few weeks ago I wished to kill her to relieve myself of emotion. What a fool I was. Emotion is what drives us all, it's what makes us do these things. If I were free of emotion, I would lose the desire to kill in the first place."

" I… I guess that makes sense." Squee concurred.

Johnny grinned. " To think that I could ever be satisfied in such a way."

" So you're happy?" Squee wondered.

" I'm happy." Johnny looked out the window thoughtfully. " Dreadfully happy. It all came together in the end, didn't it? It all makes sense. The flusher order… we'll be a Flusher Family, all of us, together!"

Squee looked frightened. " But I don't want to be part of your family!"

" You'll get used to it. Life throws you lemons, but eventually you'll stop throwing them back. You'll make lemonade." Johnny threw his hands up into the air and laughed. " Yes, this not an ending! This is a beginning! An awful, horrid, bloodthirsty beginning!"

Squee backed up against the wall, looking afraid. He picked up his Shmee doll and hugged it. Squee knew a few things already about life, though. Johnny and Devi were driven by fury inside of them, but they wouldn't harm someone they truly loved. Johnny's feelings had ripened and had been cultivated to the point where he couldn't kill Devi, no matter how hard he tried. Devi's feelings for Johnny had disintegrated from pure hate to mild dislike, and after losing her memory, she'd learn to even love him in return.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Ten, Part 3: Epilouge

Though their relationship became one of minds, of parallel minds thinking on similar wavelengths, it had crossed the border into physicality much later. Nearly three years after Johnny and Devi began to work together, protected from outside forces because they were all flusher material again, they had a child of their own. It had taken Johnny that long to be able to transcend his own fear of bodily contact, of being human, of emotions.

Johnny never did lie to Devi. Whenever she asked him of her past, he told her as much as he could. Neither could recall their childhood, though, for neither had seen the other's childhood, and there was no way to supply these memories to one another. Therefore they viewed their lives as enigmas up until they both met.

As for Squee – he adjusted rather poorly at first, but eventually learned to avoid his adopted family's killing sprees and their multiple torture chambers. Instead, he became one of the youngest successful poets, his poetry dark and disturbingly emotional for such a small child. He grew locked inside himself, becoming more and more disillusioned by what humanity was. As he retracted into himself, he also learned to dislike humanity and the need for physical contact. In short, he was becoming very much like Johnny, on a track to a similar future.

Perhaps they were destined to eventually all come together.

Perhaps one of them had done some prodding to push Fate into this one direction.

Whatever it was, they were all happy, beneath layers of pain, bitterness, and hate.

****

Author's Note: A very serious finish here, I felt this story was deserving of a very complex, touching ending. And, of course, it leaves room to fill in pieces, just like the first JTHM series. YES! I realize I am insane and I just had to completely destroy Devi's character, MWA HAHA, but eventually I got the ending I wanted! And Johnny didn't have to lie to Devi after all… simply unveil her past selectively, so to speak… and how does it all work out? I don't know! Why wasn't Devi reported as missing? Since she's a flusher and can't be caught. There.

****

P.S. I drew JTHM FANART! It's realistic and I don't care if it looks nothing like the comic books! I cackle and upchuck in mockery at such an idea!

GOTO:  
(Devi is on the left, Nny on the right) 

GOTO:

****

(Nny getting a Brain Freezy.)

Review and I might do a magical sequel, wherein Devi and Nny realize their love for each other after Nny selectively explains Devi's past… And the beginning of Squee's training as flusher.


End file.
